IlilMljl'i iiiiill 






































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































LABYRINTH 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
TORONTO 




LABYRINTH 


BY 

HELEN R. HULL 

AUTHOR OF “QUEST,” ETC. 




J12*to got* 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1923 

All rights reserved 












PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


t V\^' 


Copyright, 1923, 

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 


Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1923. 



Press of 

J. J. Little & Ives Company 
New York, U. S. A. 


OCT 1G 1923 


i 


S\ 


©C1A760282 






To 

MABEL L. ROBINSON 



LABYRINTH 


In the old story of the labyrinth at Crete, the Mino¬ 
taur dwelling there devoured in his day innumerable 
youths and maidens. He was slain finally by the hero 
Theseus. The story goes that Theseus escaped both 
monster and death in the blind alleys of the labyrinth 
only because Ariadne was wise enough to furnish egress 
by means of her slender silken thread. 

There is a modem story of a labyrinth, differing from 
the old tale in that it has as yet no termination, no hero 
who has slain the Minotaur, no thread to guide those who 
enter its confusion of passages out to any clear safety 
beyond its winding darkness. This modern story differs 
from the old legend in other ways. The monster lurking 
in this labyrinth seems to many who hear the tale merely 
a phantom. His bellowings are soft and gentle, he 
writhes in so sentimental a fashion that he can scarcely 
be taken as a monster, and since he leaves his victims with 
their bones unbroken and their flesh unscarred, who is to 
say that he has devoured them? They themselves may 
deny their fate. And in that lies a final likeness to the 
old story. Until Theseus and Ariadne had between them 
destroyed the Minotaur, people had thought him an in¬ 
evitable pest, and had looked upon the destruction he 
wrought as legitimate. Perhaps some of the youth were 

tragic about their fate, but after all, a monster and a 

vii 


LABYRINTH 


• • • 
vm 

labyrinth possess dignity and provoke indifference merely 
by their continued existence. 

Ariadne alone might not have slain the monster. She 
might have traveled through the passageways, her silken 
thread between her fingers, and perished herself without 
some aid from Theseus. 

Here is the modern story of the labyrinth. 


CONTENTS 


PART I 

PAGE 

An Idyll—From the Inside. 3 

PART II 

Both Ends of the Candle . 87 

PART III 

Blind Alleys. 147 

PART IV 

Encounter ..213 

PART V 

Impasse.265 










PART I 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 








PART I 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 

I 

“Tell Letty, Muvver. Tell Letty.” 

“Again? Oh, Letty!” Catherine opened her eyes. 
Letty, on her stomach, was pointing at a black ant slip¬ 
ping along a grass blade. 

“ ’Nother ant. Tell Letty.” 

“Don’t squirm off the rug, or the ant will crawl up 
your rompers and take a nip.” Catherine looked up 
through the motionless leaves of the birch trees under 
which she had spread the rug. “Once there was a busy 
ant,” she began, “and he went out for a walk to find a 
grain of sand to build his house. His brother went out 

for a walk, too-” Her thoughts drifted through the 

story: how close the sky looks, as if the heat had changed 

its shape, and it rested there just above the tree-“The 

busy ant found a grain of sand and ran back to his hill to 
lay it on his house.” The haze seems thicker; the forest 
fires must be worse, no rain forever- 

“Uh-h,” Letty grunted, and held up her small brown 
hand, the ant a black smear on her palm. 

“Why, Letty!” Catherine pulled herself up on one 
elbow. “You squashed him!” 

3 





4 


LABYRINTH 


“Bad ant. Nip Letty.” 

Catherine reached for Letty’s fist just as a pink tongue 
touched it. 

“Going to eat him, are you? Little anteater.” She 
brushed the ant away and rolled her daughter over into 
her arm. “You might wait until you are nipped.” 

Letty chuckled and lay quietly for a minute, while 
Catherine looked at her. Brown legs and arms, yel¬ 
low rompers, yellow hair with sun streaks of palest 
gold, blue eyes squinted in mirth, a round and sturdy 
chin. 

Catherine closed her eyes again. Out from the woods 
behind them came with the lengthening shadows the odor 
of sun-warmed firs and dried needles. Quiet—release 
from heat—from thought. 

Suddenly Letty squirmed, pounded her heels vigorously 
against her mother’s knee, rolled over, and began her own 
method of standing up. Her process consisted of a slow 
elevation of her rear, until she had made a rounded 
pyramid of herself. She stood thus, looking gravely 
around, her hands flat on the rug, her sandaled feet wide 
apart. 

“Hurry up, anteater,” jeered Catherine. “You’ll have 
vertigo.” 

But Letty took her time. Finally erect, she started off 
across the meadow. 

“Here, you!” Catherine sat up. “Where you going?” 

“Get Daddy.” Letty’s voice, surprisingly deep, 
bounced behind her. 

“Wait for me.” Catherine stretched to her feet, 
reluctantly. 

Letty would not have waited, except that she stumbled 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


5 


into an ant hill hidden in the long grass, and went down 
plump on her stomach. So she lay there calmly, turning 
her head turtle-wise to watch her mother. 

Catherine had borne three children without adding a 
touch of the matron to her slender, long body. In knickers 
and green smock, her smooth brown hair dragging its 
heavy coil low down her slim neck, she looked young and 
strong and like the birch tree under which she stood. 
There was even the same suggestion of quiet which a 
breath might dispel, of poise which might at a moment 
tremble into agitation. The suggestion lay in her long 
gray eyes, with eagerness half veiled by thin lids and dark 
lashes, or perhaps in the long, straight lips, too firmly 
closed. 

A shout came up the path between the alders, and Letty 
scrambled to her feet. 

“Daddy!” she shrieked, and headed down the path, 
Catherine loping easily after her. 

There they were, Charles and the two older children, 
Spencer carrying a string of flounders, Marian with the 
fish lines hugged under her arm, and Charles between 
them, each of his hands caught in one of theirs. They 
stopped as Letty pelted toward them. 

“Fishy! Sweet fishy!” Letty reached for the string. 
Spencer drew it sternly away, and Letty reached again, 
patting the flat cold flounder on the end. 

“Letty, you’ll get all dirty and fish smelly.” Spencer 
disapproved. 

“Sweet fishy—” Letty’s howl broke off as her father 
swung her up to his shoulder. 


6 


LABYRINTH 


“Fine supper we got, Mother,” said Charles, grinning. 

“And I caught two,” cried, Spencer, “and Marian 
caught one-” 

“It was bigger’n yours,” said Marian, sadly, “if it was 
just one.” 

“Well, but Marian hollered so when a fish picked at 
her line and so she scared him off.” 

Marian peered up under her shock of dark bobbed 
hair, and finding a twinkle in Catherine’s eyes, giggled. 

“I did holler,” she said. “I like to holler, and fish 
haven’t any ears and couldn’t hear me-” 

“This being the ninth time this discussion has been 
carried on,” said Charles, “I move we change the sub¬ 
ject. Anything will do-” 

Spencer sighed. The procession moved up the lane, 
Father at the head, with Letty making loud “Glumph! 
Glumphs!” as his rubber boots talked, Spencer next, try¬ 
ing to space his smaller boots just in his father’s foot¬ 
steps, and Marian with Catherine at the rear. 

“Who’s going to clean those fish?” Catherine wrinkled 
her nose. 

“Well, we caught them. Division of labor, eh, 
Spencer?” 

“The male has the sport, and the female the disgusting 
task of removing the vitals, I suppose.” 

“Amelia won’t,” announced Marian. “She said she 

couldn’t clean fish, it turned her stomach.” 

“I wouldn’t keep a maid that wouldn’t clean fish.” 
Charles dropped Letty on the broad granite step of the 
farmhouse, and settled beside her. “Who’ll get me some 
shoes ?” He hauled at his red rubber boot, and the clam 
mud flew off in a shower. 





AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


? 

Letty grabbed again at the string of fish as Spencer 
stood incautiously near her. 

“Take them into the sink, Spen,” said Catherine. 
“Marian, can you find Daddy’s sneakers? You’ll all 
need a scrub, I’ll say.” 

She looked at them a moment. Marian, dark; irregu¬ 
lar small features, tanned to an olive brown; slim as 
witch grass. Spencer, stocky, with fair cropped head 
and long gray eyes like her own. Charles—he looked 
heavier, and certainly well; the sun had left a white 
streak under the brim of his battered hat and behind 
his spectacles, but the rest of his face was fiery. 

“Cold cream for you, old man,” she said. “You 
aren’t used to our Maine sun and sea burn.” 

“I think I’ll be a captain,” said Spencer, seriously, 
turning from his opening of the door. “And fight. Like 
father.” He gazed admiringly at the old service hat on 
the step. 

Catherine’s mouth shut grimly and her lids drooped 
over her eyes. 

“Plan some other career, my son. Your father didn’t 
fight, anyway. Did he say he did?” 

“Now, Catherine, I just told them about the camp at 
Brest.” 

Catherine looked at her husband, a long, quiet glance. 
Then she followed Spencer into the kitchen. 

“Oh, ’Melia!” The heat from the stove rushed at her. 
“You built a fire to-night!” 

“Yes, I did.” Amelia, a small, wiry, faded Maine 
woman, turned from the table. “That oil stove’s acting 
queer, and anyways, it don’t seem as if you could fry 
fish on it.” 


8 


LABYRINTH 


“We might eat them raw, then, instead of sweltering.” 
Catherine pushed her sleeves above her elbows, and 
reached for a knife. 

“Now that’s a real pretty ketch, ain’t it?” Amelia 
nodded at Spencer, who watched while the flounders were 
slipped from the cord into the sink. 

Catherine cleaned the fish. She left Amelia to fry 
them while she set the table. The heat from the kitchen 
crept into the long, low dining room. Then Catherine 
drew Letty, protesting shrilly, into the bedroom, where 
she undressed and bathed her. When she had slipped 
the nightie over the small yellow head, she kissed her. 
“Now you find Daddy, and I’ll have Amelia bring your 
milk out to the porch.” 

She called Marian, who came on a run, peeling her 
jumper over her head. 

“Can I put on my white sailor suit to show Daddy, 
Muvver ?” She dragged it from the clothes-press. “Oooh! 
That’s cold water!” She wriggled under Catherine’s swift 
fingers. 

“There, little eel.” Catherine knotted the blue tie. 
“Run along. Where’s Spencer?” 

“He’s washing hisself, I think.” Marian smoothed 
up her blue sock with a little preening motion, and 
vanished. 

“Mis’ Hammond!” came Amelia’s thin call, and Cath¬ 
erine went back to the kitchen. 

Letty was in bed on the porch, her smeary white duck 
sitting on the pillow beside her, her deep little voice run¬ 
ning on in an unintelligible story of the day. 

“Supper ready, Catherine?” Father stood in the door¬ 
way of the dining room, Marian and Spencer at his 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


9 

heels. “We fishermen are starved. Oh, you aren’t 
dressed yet.” 

“I’m as dressed as I shall be.” Catherine pushed her 
hair back from a moist forehead. “Let’s eat.” 

“Well, we like to see you dressed up like a lady once 
a day, don’t we?” Charles grinned at her as he pulled 
up his chair. 

Catherine felt her hands twitch in her lap. “Steady,” 
she warned herself. “He’s just joking. I’ve been busy— 
I should have dressed this afternoon-” 

“Some flounder!” Charles bit into the golden brown 
fish. “What you been doing all the time, Catherine, while 
we went provender hunting?” 

“Thinking,” said Catherine slowly. “That is, I 
thought in between Letty’s demands for more story.” 

“What did you think about, Mother?” Spencer’s face 
lighted with quick curiosity. 

“Some about you, Spencer, and some about Marian 
and Letty, and some about Daddy, and mostly about— 
me.” Catherine was serving the salad. She had deft, 
slim hands with long fingers, and her movements were 
slow and beautifully exact. 

“What about us?” asked Marian. 

“I have to think some more, first.” Catherine looked 
up at Charles. “A lot more.” 

II 

The house was a gray mass in the evening, with one 
pale yellow window where the kitchen lamp shone. Cath¬ 
erine lay motionless in the wicker lounge on the low 
front veranda. Amelia had gone home. Spencer and 



10 


LABYRINTH 


Marian were asleep. Charles had gone to the village 
store for tobacco. Down below the house the smoke and 
heat mist veiled the transparency of the sea. So still 
was the night that Catherine heard the faint “mrrr” of 
wings of a huge gray moth that flew against her cheek 
and then away. 

‘‘Queer,” she thought “If the house were empty, it 
would have many sounds, rustles and squeaks and stir¬ 
rings. But because children sleep there, it is quiet. As 
if the old ghosts and spirits stood on tiptoe, peeking 
at the intruders.” 

She stretched lazily, and relaxed again. The loudest 
sound in the night was her own soft breathing. Then, 
faintly, the gravel in the path slipped. Charles was 
coming back. 

Catherine dropped her feet over the edge of the couch 
and clasped her arms about her knees. When he comes, 
she thought, I will tell him. If I go on thinking in the 
dark, I’ll fly to bits. 

She could see him, darker than the bushes, moving 
toward her. Then she could smell his pipe. 

“Hello!” she called softly, and he crossed the grass to 
the steps. 

“Say, what a night! And what a place!” He slapped 
his hat beside him, and sat down at Catherine’s feet, 
backed against the pillar. “It’s been fierce in town to¬ 
day, I’ll bet. You’re lucky to be able to stay here.” He 
puffed, and the smoke moved in a cloud about the indis¬ 
tinct outline of his face. “Wish I could!” 

“When are you going?” 

“To-morrow night.” Charles sounded aggrieved. “I 
wrote you I had just the week-end.” 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


ii 


“I hoped you might manage a little longer-” 

“Can’t manage that conference on Monday without 
being there.” 

“What conference is that?” Catherine swung one 
knee over the other; as she watched the face there in the 
dark, she could feel its expression, although the features 
were so vague. 

“The committee on psychological work in the schools. 
You remember? Planning it all through the East. It’s 
a big thing.” 

“Oh, that new committee.” Catherine was apathetic. 

“That woman I spoke of, Stella Partridge, is mighty 
keen. She’s working out an organization scheme that 
beats any plan I’ve seen. I tell you what, old girl, it’s 
great to see the world wake up and swing around to 
asking for what you want to give it!” Charles cuffed 
at her foot. “Remember that first year down here? 
With Spencer a baby, and buying this old house a tre¬ 
mendous undertaking, and me writing a book that I 
didn’t dare hope would sell? Things are different now, 
aren’t they?” 

“They are different.” Catherine’s voice hardened 
subtly. “I helped with that book, didn’t I?” 

“Jove! I should say you did. All that typing, and 
correcting, and then the proof reading.” 

“And now-” Catherine hesitated. 

“Well, now my work has broadened out so much, and 
there are the three children. I can afford to hire the 
typing done now, eh what?” 

“Yes.” 

“What’s the matter with you, Catherine? You’ve had 
a kind of chip about you somewhere ever since I came 




12 


LABYRINTH 


this time. I can’t help it if I can’t spend all my time 
playing in the country with you and the children, can I? 
After all, I have to see to my work, and it’s increasingly 
demanding.” 

“I haven’t any chip on my shoulder, Charles?” 
Catherine caught her breath. “I do want to talk to 
you.” 

“Fire ahead.” Charles tapped out the ashes from his 
pipe and reached up for her hand. “What’s eating 
you ?” 

“Oh, Charles!” Catherine’s slender fingers shut in¬ 
side his warm palm. “Help me out! You ought to un¬ 
derstand.” Her laugh shivered off abruptly. “You know 
I’m proud of you, just puffed up. Do you know I’m 
jealous, too? Jealous as—as nettles!” 

“Huh? Jealous? What about? Come down here, 
where I can hug you.” 

“No. I don’t want to be loved. I want to talk. I’m 
not jealous about your love. I guess you love me, when 
you think of it-” 

“Now, Cathy, you aren’t turning into a foolish woman.” 

“I’m turning into something awful! That’s why I’ve 
got to do something. It’s your work, I’m jealous of.” 

“Why, my work doesn’t touch my feeling about you.” 

“That’s not what I mean. I mean I’m proud of you, 
every one is, and you aren’t proud of me. No one is. 
No one could be. I’m-” 

“Why, Cathy! I am! You’re a wonder with the 
children. And the way you’ve stood back of me. What 
are you talking about?” 

“I don’t want to get emotional. I want to make you 
see what I’ve been thinking about. All the nights this 




AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


13 

summer while Fve sat here at the end of the day. Eve 
tried to think—my mind is coated with fat, my thoughts 
creak. Charles”—her voice trembled—“can you imagine 
yourself in my place, all summer, or all last year, or the 
year before? Planning meals or clothes—instead of con¬ 
ferences? Telling stories to Letty. Holding yourself 
down on ,the level of children, to meet them, or answer 
them, or understand them, until you scarcely have a 
grown-up thought? Before Letty was born, and the 
year after, of course I wasn’t very well. That makes 
a difference. But now I am. What am I going to do? 
Could you stand it?” 

“But, Catherine, a man-” 

“If you tell me a man is different, I’ll stop talking!” 
Catherine cried out. 

“I was going to make a scientific statement.” Charles 
stopped, the tolerant good nature of his voice touching 
Catherine like salt in a cut finger. “To the effect,” 
he went on, “that usually a man’s ego is stronger, and 
a woman’s maternal instinct drowns her ego, so that 
she can live in a situation which would be intolerable to 
a man.” 

“Well, then, I’m egoistic to the root.” Catherine jerked 
her hand away from his grasp. “At any rate, the situa¬ 
tion is intolerable.” 

“Poor old girl!” Charles patted her knee. “The 
summer has been dull, hasn’t it?” 

“It’s not just that. Do you know, I was almost hap¬ 
pier while you were in France and I was working— 
than I am now!” 

“Didn’t care if I did get hit by a shell, eh? Didn’t 
miss me at all?” 



H 


LABYRINTH 


“I did, and you know it.” Catherine was silent, her 
eyes straining toward him in the darkness. 

“That was part of the war excitement, wasn’t it?” 

“No. But something happened in me when you told 
me you were going. I had been living just in you, you 
and the two children. I thought that was all I ever 
wanted. And I thought you felt toward me the same 
way. Then—you could throw it over—because you 
wanted something else.” 

“Catherine, we’ve had that out dozens of times. You 
know it was a chance for the experience of a lifetime, 
psychological work in those hospitals. And then—well, 
I had to get in it.” 

“I know. I didn’t say a word, did I ? But I went to 
work and I liked it. Then you came back-” 

“Well?” His word hung tenderly between them. 

“Yes.” Catherine sighed. “Like falling in love again, 
wasn’t it? Only deeper. And we wanted Letty.” Her 
voice quavered again. “That’s it! I love you so much. 
But you don’t sit down in your love—and devour it— 
and let it devour you. It isn’t right, Charles, help me! 
I”—she laughed faintly—“I’m like your shell-shocked 
soldiers. You couldn’t really cure them until peace 
came. Then they weren’t shell-shocked any more. I’m 
shell-shocked too, and I can’t cure myself, and I see no 
armistice. I’m growing worse. I know why women 
have hysterics and all sorts of silly diseases. I’ll have 
’em too in a day or so!” 

“Funny, isn’t it, when I’d like nothing better than a 
chance to loaf here with the kids. But you’ll get back to 
town soon and see people, theaters, club-” 

“And hear about the whooping cough the Thomases 




AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


15 

had—and—oh, damn!” Catherine was crying suddenly, 
broken, stifled sobs. 

Charles pulled her down into his arms, holding her 
firmly against his chest. 

“There, old girl! Stop it! What do you want ?” 

Catherine pushed herself away from him, her hands 
braced against him. 

“I won’t be silly.” She flung her hand across her 
eyes. “I'm sorry. But I’ve tried to figure it out, and 
I just drop into a great black gulf, and drown!” 

“What are you figuring on?” Charles let his fingers 
travel slowly along the curve of her cheek until they shut 
softly about her throat. 

Catherine held herself sternly away from the comfort 
of touch. 

“I can’t endure it, day after day, the same things. 
Petty manual jobs. And I’m older every day. And soon 
the children will be grown up, and I’ll be flat on the dump 
heap.” 

“In a few more years, Cathy, I’ll have more money. 
Now you know we can’t afford more servants, I’m sorry.” 

“I don’t want more from you!” Catherine cried out. 
“I want to do something myself!” 

“You know how much you do.” Charles scoffed at 
her, but she caught the hint of scratched pride in his 
voice. “In the middle-class family the wife is the largest 
economic factor.” 

“Charles, if I work out a scheme which puts no more 
burden on you”—Catherine’s breath quickened—“would 
you mind my going back to work? I’ve figured it out. 
How much I’d have to earn to fill my place-” 

“You mean—take a job?” 



i6 


LABYRINTH 


“Yes.” 

Charles reached for his pipe. 

“What would you do about the children?” He cleared 
his throat. “They seem to need a mother.” 

“Well, they need a father, too, but not to be a door¬ 
mat.” 

“Everything I think of saying, Catherine, sounds 
awfully mid-Victorian.” 

“I know what it all is! You needn’t think I don’t. 
But I know the answer to it all, too, so you needn’t 
bother saying it.” 

“I suppose I better consider myself lucky you aren’t 
expecting me to stay home and take care of Letty. You 
aren’t, are you?” 

Catherine laughed. She knew Charles wanted to laugh; 
he was tired of this serious talk. 

“You won’t mind, then?” she added, tensely. “You 
see, if you aren’t willing, and interested, I can’t do it.” 

“Try it. Go ahead. I’ll bet you’ll get sick of it soon 
enough. After all, you women forget the nuisance of 
being tied to appointments, rain or shine, toothache or 
stomachache-’ ’ 

“Ah-h”—Catherine relaxed in his arms, one hand 
moving up around his neck. “It has seemed so awful, 
so serious, thinking it out alone. You are an old dear!” 

“All right. Have it your own way.” Charles struck 
his match and held it above the pipe bowl. The light 
showed his eyes a little amused, a little tender, a little 
skeptical. It flared out, leaving dancing triangles of 
orange in the darkness. Catherine shivered. Was he 
just humoring her, like a child? Not really caring? 
But she shut her eyes upon the mocking flecks of light 



AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


i7 

and slipped off to the step below him, her head com¬ 
fortably against his arm. 

She was tired, as if she had cut through ropes which 
had held her erect and taut. She could feel the slight 
movement of muscles in the arm under her cheek, as 
Charles sucked away at his pipe. The soft darkness 
seemed to move up close and sweet about them, with faint 
rustles in the grass at her feet. Queer that just loving 
couldn’t be enough, when it had such sweetness. Her 
thoughts drifted off in a warm, tranquil flood of emotion; 
her self was gone, washed out in this nearness, this quiet. 
Charles stirred, and unconsciously she waited for a sign 
from him out of the perfect, enclosed moment. 

He spoke. 

“I want you to meet Miss Partridge when you come 
back to town. Great head she’s got. We’re using her 
plan of organization in the small towns.” 

Catherine sat very still. After an instant she lifted 
her head from his shoulder and yawned audibly. 

“I’m sleepy. The day has been so warm,” she said, 
and rose. She kicked against something metallic and 
stooped to pick up Letty’s red pail and shovel, as she 
passed into the house. 

Ill 

“Dark o’ the moon! Dark o’ the moon! Dark— 
Mother, see what I found!” Spencer broke his slow 
chant with a squeal, and dangled above his head the 
great purple starfish. Sure-footed, like a lithe brown sea 
animal, he darted over the slippery golden seaweed to¬ 
ward Catherine, who looked up from the shallow green 
pool over which she had been stooping. 


i8 


LABYRINTH 


“Lemme see too!” Marian’s dark head rose from be¬ 
hind a rock and she stumbled after her brother. Plump! 
she was down in the treacherous kelp, her serious face 
scarcely disconcerted. Marian always slipped on the 
seaweed. 

“Isn’t he ’normous ? He’s the ’normousest yet.” 
Spencer laid the star on the rock, bending over to 
straighten one of the curling arms. 

“I found one almost as big,” declared Marian, “only 
pink. And pink’s a nicer color. Isn’t it, Muvver?” 

“If you like it.” Catherine took Spencer’s sea-chilled 
fingers in hers and drew them down to the under side of 
the ledge over the pool. “Feel that?” 

“What is it?” Spencer’s gray eyes darkened with 
excitement. 

“Lemme feel too!” Marian sat down on the sea¬ 
weed and slid along to the ledge. “Where ?” 

Catherine guided her fingers. How like sea things 
those cold little hands felt! “What does it feel like ?” 

“Kinda soft and kinda hard and- Oh, it’s got a 

mouth!” Marian squirmed away. “Tell us, Muvver! 
What is it?” 

“Can you guess, Spen?” 

“May I look, Mother? I think it’s—snail eggs.” 

Catherine laughed. 

“Lean over and look. I’ll hold you.” She seized 
his belt, while he craned his neck over the bit of 
rock. 

“Purple, too!” He came back, flushed. “I know!” 

“Lemme see!” Marian plunged downward, her legs 
waving. “It’s full of holes. What is it?” 

“Sponges,” said Spencer, importantly. 



AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


19 


“Sponges is brown and bigger,” cried Marian. 

“These are alive and not the same kind as your bath 
sponge.” 

Catherine straightened her back and looked out over 
the sea. Opal, immobile, so clear that the flat pink 
ledges beyond the lowest tide mark were like blocks of 
pigment in the water. Something strange in this dark 
of the moon tide, dragging the water away from hidden 
places, uncovering secret pools. Once every summer 
Catherine rowed across to the small rocky point that 
marked the entrance to the cove, to see what the tide 
disclosed. There was a thrill about the hour when the 
water seemed to hang motionless, below the denuded 
rocks. Spencer felt it; Catherine had touched the sensi¬ 
tive vibration of his fingers as he searched. Marian found 
the expedition interesting, like clam digging! Catherine 
remembered the year the fog had come in as the tide 
swung back, suddenly terrifyingly thick and gray about 
them, so that she had wondered whether they ever would 
find their own mooring; she could see the ghostly shore, 
with unfamiliar rocks looming darkly out of the grayness, 
as she rowed slowly around the cove, trying to keep 
the shore line as guide. Charles had come out to meet 
them; his “Hullo!” had been a whisper first, moving 
through the mist and seeming to recede. Then he had 
come alongside them, the fog drops thick on his worried 
face. Spencer had liked that, too, although Marian had 
crouched on her bow seat, shivering. 

No fog to-day. The horizon line was pale and clear. 
She should go back for Letty. They had left her be¬ 
hind them on a sandy stretch of beach, with a pile of 
whitened sea-urchin shells. 


20 


LABYRINTH 


“Mother!” Spencer repeated his summons. “What 
is dark o’ the moon?” 

Catherine explained vaguely as they scrambled up the 
rounded, slippery rocks to the patch of coarse grass at 
the top of the small point. Where was Letty? She had 
been visible from there. Catherine began to run, down 
to the muddy flats that separated the point from the 
mainland. Only a few minutes since she had last seen 
her head, like a bit of bright seaweed. The water was 

so far out, surely- Panic nipped at her heels as she 

flew. “Letty! Let-ty!” There was the pile of shells. 
“Letty!” A spasm of fear choked her breathing. Then 
a call, deep and contented. 

“Letty here.” Around the clump of beach peas and 
driftwood— The yellow head nodded out of a mud 
hole left by a clam digger on the beach. “Letty swim.” 

Catherine picked up her daughter. 

“Letty, darling! You little imp-” The gray mud 

dripped from rompers and sandals. 

“Oh, she’s all wet.” Marian puffed up. “And dirty!” 

“Now how are we going to get you home without a 
cold, young woman!” Catherine stood her on the beach, 
and sighed. Letty, her fingers full of the soft mud, 
looked up with bright, unremorseful eyes. 

“My sweater’s in the dory, Mother.” Spencer frowned 
at his sister. “You haven’t any sense, Letty.” 

Letty’s rompers served as a bath towel, and the sweater 
made a cocoon. She sat beside Marian, while Catherine 
and Spencer rowed the old dory across the half mile of 
quiet water. The children chattered about their dis¬ 
coveries, and Catherine listened while her thoughts moved 
quickly beneath the surface of the talk. Fear like that— 




21 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 

it’s terrific, unreasoning, overwhelming. How would 
you bear it if anything happened! You have to be all 
eyes, and be with them every instant. How can you 
plan, thinking of anything else? And yet, things happen 
to children, of any mothers- 

“Dark o’ the moon—pulls the ole water—away from 

the earth-” Spencer chanted as he rowed. “Dark 

o’ the moon-” 

“What makes you say that all the time, Spencer ?” 
demanded Marian. 

“I like to say it. Pulls the ole water—away from the 
earth-” 

“Not so deep, Spencer. You drag your oar. See—” 
Catherine pulled the blades smoothly along, just beneath 
the surface. 

“I know. I meant to.” Spencer was intent on his 
oars again. 

IV 

The mail bag hung on the post. Catherine drew out 
its contents. A letter from Charles. The paper. Her 
fingers gripped over an envelope. From the Bureau, 
in answer to hers. A piece of fate, in that square white 
thing. She thrust it into her pocket. Later, when the 
children were asleep. She could think then. 

Now the air was full of the children. Letty’s deep 
squeals of mirth, a strange noise from Spencer, meant 
to be whinnying, as he pranced up the path dragging 
Letty’s cart, protests from Marian, “You are silly, I 
think!” Would Marian always be so serious? And 
Spencer—he was always exhausting himself by the very 
exuberance of his fancy. Catherine followed them slowly. 






22 


LABYRINTH 


Suddenly the sounds broke off for an instant of sur¬ 
prised silence; Catherine lifted her head. The children 
were out of sight around the bend, and she could not see 
the house yet. Other voices, and a shriek from Letty. 
She hurried past the alder growth. There was a car 
by the side door, and people. Marian flew toward 
her. 

“Muvver! Mr. Bill and Dr. Henrietta! They’ve come 
to see us!” 

“Good gracious! What can I feed them ?” thought 
Catherine. Then, as she came nearer and saw them, she 
thought, “I’m getting to be the meanest kind of do¬ 
mestic animal.” 

Dr. Henrietta Gilbert, fair, plump, serene, immacu¬ 
lately tailored, looked up from her seat on the step, one 
arm around Letty, who was gleaming brown and sleek 
from the carelessly draped red sweater. Spencer hov¬ 
ered at her shoulder, his face lighted with pleasure. 

“Hello, Catherine!” she held up one hand. 

William Gilbert stood behind them, his dark, tired face 
smiling a little, his long, lean body sagging lazily. 
Catherine reached for his hand. 

“Well, you two!” she cried. “How’d you find this 
place ?” 

“Charles gave us minute directions.” Dr. Henrietta 
rose neatly. “He wouldn’t come. He’s too important 
for trips. What’s happened to Letty? She seems to be 
clothed for a prize fight.” 

“Letty swim!” shouted Letty proudly. 

“You drove from New York?” Catherine lifted Letty 
into her arms, and enveloped her in the sweater. “I didn’t 
know you could get away.” 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 23 

“Labor Day,” said Bill. He was gazing at the chil¬ 
dren, his eyes half shut behind his thick glasses. 

‘‘If you can’t put us up, Catherine, we’ll hunt for a 
boarding house. But we wanted to see you.” 

“Of course I can. Do you think I’d let you escape, 
when I’m starving for human beings?’’ 

“With all of these?’’ Bill nodded at the group. 

“They are animals, not human beings, aren’t you, 
Marian?” Dr. Henrietta laughed at Marian’s distressed 
face. “Your woman in the kitchen”—she dropped her 
voice mysteriously—“thought we were bandits and didn’t 
ask us in.” 

Amelia was pleased to meet them, when Catherine 
ushered them properly into the house. 

“Don’t that beat all!” she said, loudly, as they fol¬ 
lowed Spencer to the guest room. “I thought they was 
peddlars. Drove all the ways from New York! Don’t 
that beat all!” She made flurried rushes about the 
kitchen, pulling open the cupboard doors. “Now don’t 
you fuss, Mis’ Hammond. If baked beans is good 
enough I can make out a meal, I guess. She’s a doctor, 
eh?” 

After a fleet half hour Catherine had Letty bathed, 
fed, and tucked into her cot. She had slipped out of her 
knickerbockers and smock into a soft green dress. No 
time to brush her hair; she adjusted a pin in the heavy 
brown knot, and glanced at her reflection. Letty’s voice 
rose in deep inarticulate demand from the porch. 
Catherine stepped to the door. Bill stood outside. 

“She wants you to say good night to Ducky Wobbles.” 
Catherine smiled at him; she had, at times, a lovely smile, 


LABYRINTH 


24 

unreserved in its warm friendliness. She was fond of 
Bill; his dark silence piqued her, but she felt that it was 
a silence of steady, quiet wisdom, which couldn’t break 
itself up into tiny words. 

“Can’t I say good night to Letty instead?” 

“No! Nice Ducky!” Letty wobbled her duck at him. 
“Goo’ni’ to my Ducky!” 

“Well, then, good night to Ducky and to his Letty.” 

Letty dropped back into her pillow, content. 

“Now you go to sleep, old lady.” Catherine closed the 
door, and stopped for a moment to supervise Marian’s 
preparations. 

Spencer had filled the wood basket with shining pink- 
white birch logs. Catherine drew out the crane with 
the kettle and laid a fire on the andirons in the huge old 
fire-place. Dr. Henrietta came out, dangling her eye¬ 
glasses on a long black ribbon over her sturdy white 
finger. 

“This is a charming old place, Catherine. You all 
look well, too. A summer in the country certainly sets 
the children up.” 

Catherine glanced at her, as the flame crept around 
the logs. 

“You ought to try it, if you want to know what it 
does to you—” she paused. “Moss in every cranny of 
your brain—” Bill was coming in. “After supper I’ll, 
tell you!” 

Supper was over. Spencer had piloted Bill and the 
car safely into the barn, running back to tell Catherine, 
“Moth-er! Mr. Bill thinks his car scared all the old cow 
ghosts in the stalls.” When he and Marian were in 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


25 

bed, Catherine came back to the living room, the square 
envelope from the Bureau in her hand. 

"It’s queer you two should come to-night/' she said. 
“I need you to talk to.” 

Bill had settled in the old fiddle-back walnut chair, the 
smoke from his pipe turning his lined face into a dim 
gargoyle. Dr. Henrietta was fitting a cigarette into her 
long amber holder. 

“Charles hasn’t been here much this summer, has he ?” 
she asked. 

“Only occasional week-ends.” Catherine sat down on 
the footstool on the hearth. The light shone through the 
loosened brown hair about her face and turned her throat 
to pale ivory. “He was here a week ago.” 

“Your sister? Has she been here?” 

“No. She decided to spend her vacation in the moun¬ 
tains with that friend of hers. Nobody’s been here! J 
haven’t seen anyone since last May, except for flying 
shots at Charles. If I begin to spout a Mother Goose 
rhyme at you, you might understand why.” 

“Well, you haven’t the mossy look I connect with 
mothers,” said Henrietta, as she smoked in quick little 
spurts. “Have a cigarette?” She tossed her silver case 
into Catherine’s lap. 

“Sworn off.” Catherine ran her finger over the 
monogram. “Amelia would know I was a fallen woman 
—haven’t lighted one since—oh, since Charles came back 
from France.” 

“Didn’t he care for those home fires?” Bill took his 
pipe out of his teeth, drawled his question, and went on 
with his inspection of the flames. 

Catherine laughed. 


26 


LABYRINTH 


“Tell me what you two have been doing since I saw 
you.” 

Henrietta retrieved her case and extracted a second 
cigarette. 

“Same things. Babies, clinics, babies. Bill’s had a 
bridge over in Jersey. The Journal’s taken a series of 
articles I did on that gland work last year. Public school 
on the East Side is going to let me run sort of a labora¬ 
tory clinic on malnutrition. Mother instinct down there 
feeds its infants on cabbage, fried cakes, and boiled tea.” 

“You’re a wonder, Henry.” Catherine sighed. “Putting 
over what you want.” 

“It’s only these last few years, you know, that I’ve 
had any recognition.” 

“You’re a wonder, just the same. Isn’t she, Bill?” 

“Um.” Bill’s grunt gave complete assent. 

Catherine looked steadily at her friend. Even in the 
soft firelight Dr. Henrietta Gilbert retained her smooth, 
competent neatness. A smoothness like porcelain, thought 
Catherine. Porcelain with warmth in it, she added 
hastily to herself, as if she had made an unfair accusation. 
Firm, kindly lips; contented, straightforward blue eyes; 
plump, ungraceful body; Dr. Henrietta had a compact, 
assured personality, matter of fact, intelligent, enduring. 
Catherine wondered: do I give, as she looks at me, as 
complete an impression of me? I feel hidden away. 
Then she thought, quickly, of the grim days when Spencer 
lay so piteously still except when he struggled for breath, 
when he had so nearly died—pneumonia—and Henrietta 
had seemed to hold herself between the child and death 
itself, calm, untroubled. She was a wonder! 

“You couldn’t have done; it, could you,” she said 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


27 


suddenly, “if you had had children?” Then she stopped, 
aghast at her heedlessness. She had never said that 
when Bill was there to hear her. But Henrietta’s response 
was cheerful and prompt. 

“Certainly not. That’s why we haven’t any.” 

Catherine glanced shyly toward Bill. His eyes, in¬ 
scrutable as ever, did not lift from the fire. 

“That’s”—Catherine hesitated—“that’s what I want 
to talk about.” 

“What?” Henrietta was on her guard. 

“Oh, I don’t mean you. I mean me?” She balanced 
the letter on her knee and pointed at it. “That letter. I 
haven’t opened it, but it’s an omen.” 

“Don’t be mysterious,” Henrietta jibed at her. 

“I want to go to work. I wrote to the Bureau, where 
I had that job while Charles was in France. This is their 
answer.” 

Bill leaned forward to tap his pipe out on the fire tongs. 
Catherine felt his eyes on her face. 

“Catherine! Bully for you!” Henrietta clapped her 
hand on Catherine’s shoulder. “Have you told Charles? 
Can you manage it?” 

“I told him.” Catherine drank eagerly of the bluff 
encouragement ii\ Henrietta’s voice. “He calls it my 
‘unsatisfied trend.’ But he wouldn’t object, of course.” 

“I thought you didn’t care much for that work. Sta¬ 
tistics, wasn’t it?” Bill put his question quietly. 

“Part of it I didn’t.” Catherine admitted that re¬ 
luctantly. “But a new investigation is being started, on 
teaching. I am interested in that. I taught, you know, 
before I married, and I think that is as important as any¬ 
thing in the world.” 


28 


LABYRINTH 


“Read the letter, woman!” Henrietta shook Catherine’s 
shoulder. 

Catherine ran her finger under the flap and unfolded 
the square page. As she bent near the firelight, a log 
rolled off the burning pile, sending a yellow flame high 
into the chimney, touching into relief the wistful, tremu¬ 
lous lines of her mouth. 

“They want me.” Her voice was hushed, as she looked 
up at Henrietta. “At once. Dr. Roberts says he had 
been looking for someone. He thought I was unavailable.” 

A shrill, frightened cry darted into the room, sharp as 
a flame. Catherine leaped to her feet. 

“Spencer. He has nightmares.” She went hastily out 
to the sleeping porch. 

He was moaning in his sleep, one hand brushing 
frantically over his blanket. Catherine’s hand closed over 
his. “There, Spencer,” she said, softly, “it’s all right, 
dear.” He did not wake, but the moaning dropped into 
regular, quiet breathing, and his hand relaxed warmly 
in hers. She stood a moment, listening. Then she stole 
to the other two beds, bending over each. Letty’s breath¬ 
ing was so soft that her heart stood still an instant as she 
listened. At the door of the porch she clasped her hands 
over her breast. 

“Am I wicked?” she thought. “When I have them— 
to care about—” A passion of tenderness for them 
shook her; she felt as if the three of them lay at the very 
core of her being, and she enclosed them, crouching above 
them, fiercely maternal. 

Slowly she went back to the living room. She heard 
Bill’s low voice, and then Henrietta’s, 

“Catherine can do it. She has brains and strength-” 



AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


29 


Her entrance broke off the sentence. 

‘Til light a lamp,” she said briefly. “This firelight’s 
too sentimental. I want hard common sense.” 

“Here, let me.” Bill flicked a match with his thumb 
nail, and Catherine fitted the heavy orange globe down 
over the lamp. 

She seated herself in the straight chair near the desk. 

“Well,” said Henrietta, “I don’t see any more clearly 
than I did in the dark. If you have the nerve to try this, 
Catherine, go ahead. I’m all for you.” 

“You think, professionally, that it won’t harm the 
children ?” 

“You can hire some woman, can’t you, to take your 
place as slave? I suppose you still can look at them 
occasionally.” 

“Yes. I suppose”—Catherine twisted her fingers to¬ 
gether—“I suppose I am as conceited as most mothers, 
wondering whether they can get along eight hours a 
day without me.” 

“You aren’t happy, are you?” Henrietta flung at her, 
abruptly. “You have the blues, black as ink. You have 
to hang on to yourself about trifles. You-” 

“Oh, yes, yes!” Catherine’s laugh shrilled a little. 
“Don’t go on with my disgraceful disposition. I admit 
it. But don’t women have to put up with that?” 

“My Lord, no. No longer than they are willing to. 
Most of them find it easier to lie down. You’ve got too 
much brains to be sentimental, Catherine Hammond.” 

“What do you think, Bill?” Catherine appealed to him 
suddenly. She felt him, in his motionless silence, prob¬ 
ing, inspecting, and never saying what he saw. 

“It is for you to decide,” he answered. 



30 


LABYRINTH 


“You. know you can’t get advice out of Bill! It’s a 
wonder he ever can serve on an engineering commission.” 
Henrietta laughed at him, in friendly, appreciative amuse¬ 
ment. “He has to offer technical advice there. He won’t 
give any other kind.” 

“You won’t consider my specifications?” Catherine 
was a trifle piteous, under her light tone. “Even if I 
need—well, it is rebuilding, isn’t it?” She wondered 
why his opinion seemed so necessary. She had Hen¬ 
rietta’s, and Henrietta was a woman. But she wanted to 
reach across, to pull at those passive, restrained hands, to 
beg him to speak. 

“I really think that you have to decide yourself.” He 
paused. “You realize, probably, that it will be like 
handling a double job. Charles would find it difficult to 
take over a new share of your present job. Most men 
would.” 

“I don’t want him to. I couldn’t bear to do the slight¬ 
est thing to interfere with him. His career is just start¬ 
ing—and brilliantly. It wouldn’t be right to bother him.” 

“Why not?” Henrietta sat up, hostility bristling in 
her manner. “Why not a fair sharing of this responsi¬ 
bility? He wanted the children, didn’t he? You’re as 
bad as some of my clinic mothers. They go out to work 
by the day, and they come home to work by the night. 
I asked one of them why she didn’t let her man help with 
the dishes and the wash, and she said, ‘Him? He’s too 
tired after supper.’ And she was earning more scrubbing 
than the man!” 

“You wouldn’t make Bill sit up with your patients, 
would you?” cried Catherine, hotly, “or typewrite your 
articles ?” 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


3 i 


“Of course Henrietta has only one job,” said Bill. 

“Charles has expected the children to be my job.” 
Catherine spoke slowly. “He is in competition with other 
men whose wives have no other thought. Like Mrs. 
Thomas, for instance. You met her?” 

“Eve met scores of them. Most of them haven’t 
brains enough to think with,” said Henrietta, crisply. 
“You have. That’s the trouble with you. Now think 
straight about this, too.” 

“I am trying to.” Catherine’s cry hung in the pleasant 
room, a sharp note of distress. 

“It is true, as Catherine sees”—Bill leaned forward— 
“that the average man grows best in nurture furnished 
by the old pattern of wife. But you can’t generalize. This 
is Catherine’s own problem.” He rose. “I wish vou 
luck, you know. Good night.” He went slowly across 
the hall, and closed the door of the guest room. 

“You can’t drag Bill into an argument,” said Hen¬ 
rietta. “Now he’s gone.” She pulled her chair around 
to face Catherine. “I want to see you make a go of this. 
To see if it can be done. It’s got to be, some day. I 
wouldn’t take the chance, you see.” 

“But it was children I most wanted.” Catherine 
groped among her familiar thoughts. “I didn’t know I 
wouldn’t be contented. I’m not sure I shouldn’t be.” 

“You aren’t. The signs are on you, plain as day. And 
you’ve hit straight at the roots of your trouble. I’ve seen 
it, longer than you have, and I’ve just been waiting. 
When Charles went off for his adventure, he left you 
space to see in!” 

“Are you—happy?” 

“Me? Of course. Reasonably.” 


LABYRINTH 


32 

“You don’t want any children?” 

“Good heavens, no! I see enough of children.” 

“But you like them. You couldn’t handle them as 
you do-” 

“I take out my well-known maternal instinct that way, 
if you like.” 

“You’re hard as nails, Henry.” 

“Catherine”—Henrietta’s face was grim under its fair 
placidity—“when I was sixteen, I saw my mother die in 
childbirth. She had eight children. Two of them are 
alive now. She was only thirty-three when she died. 
She died on a farm in Michigan, and my father thought 
she picked a poor time, because he was haying. I swore 
then I’d be something besides a female animal. William 
knew what I wanted. It’s a fair deal to him. He knew 
he was getting a wife, but not a mother. That’s all there 
is to that. I like you. When you fell for Charles so 
hard, I was afraid you were ended. Now I have 
hopes!” Her hand, firm and hard, shut about Cath¬ 
erine’s. “Only, don’t handicap yourself with this clutter 
of feelings.” 

Something in the clutch of the firm fingers gave 
Catherine a quick insight. Henrietta wasn’t hard! Not 
porcelain. A shell, over a warm, soft creature—a bar¬ 
nacle, hiding from injury as deep as that her childhood 
had shown her. 

“You’re a nice old thing.” Catherine laid her other 
hand over Henrietta’s. “And”—she came back to her 
own maelstrom—“you think it will be fair to the chil¬ 
dren? I ought to be more decent—better for them—if 
I can get some self-respect.” 

“That’s talking. You write and take that job, in- 



AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


33 

stanter! I’ll look around for a woman for you. When 
can you come down?” Henrietta withdrew her hand. 

“That’s another thing.” Catherine frowned. “Dr. 
Roberts says as soon as possible. School doesn’t open, 
though, for two weeks. I don’t like to drag the children 
back.” 

“You see?” Henrietta made an impatient lunge with 
her foot. 

“I’ll have to think that out.” 

They sat in silence for a few moments. Then Hen¬ 
rietta rose. 

“I’m glad we blew in,” she said. “But we have to 
start off early.” 

“You’ve helped.” Catherine stood in front of her 
friend, her hands clasped loosely. “I’ll hunt you up in 
town, when I need an injection of common sense.” 

She went through the quiet house, setting the screen 
in front of the crimson ash of the fire, turning down 
the lamp, hanging away the red sweater Letty had worn 
home, placing a row of damp little sandals on the kitchen 
steps where the morning sun would dry them. She stood 
there for a moment, looking off across the water. A huge 
crimson star hung low in the eastshe thought she caught 
a flicker of reflection in the dark stretch of water. Per¬ 
haps it was only a late firefly. 

For hours she lay awake, staring out at the great birch 
tree, watching the faint motion of its leaves, and the 
slipping through them of the Big Dipper as it wheeled 
slowly down its arc. 


34 


LABYRINTH 


V 

They all stood in the sunshine in front of the house, 
watching the tan top of the Gilberts’ car disappear into 
the alders. 

Spencer sighed ostentatiously. 

“Wisht we had a nottomobul,” he said. “Mr. Bill let 
me help him squirt oil and I filled a grease cup and put it 
back.” 

“Should say you did!” scoffed Marian. “Look at your 
sleeve! You’re awful dirty.” 

“Aw, shut up,” growled Spencer. 

“Shut up! Shut up!” shrieked Letty, dancing on her 
toes, and pulling at Catherine’s hand. “Shut up!” 

Catherine, who had been caught in a tight knot of con¬ 
fused thought by Henrietta’s final mockery, “You won’t 
come down for weeks, I know. And here’s your job, 
waiting for you! You can’t break through!” came back 
with a little start. 

Spencer was staring dolefully down the lane; Marian 
hovered at his smeared elbow, ready to taunt him again 
if he stayed silent; Letty pranced as if she wanted to 
say, “Sic ’em!” 

Catherine smiled. She knew how they felt. The 
arrival of the Gilberts was a large stone dropped into the 
smooth evenness of their days. Their departure—she 
couldn’t carry on that figure, but she knew the emptiness 
it left, a funny little sickish feeling, almost a fear lest 
the days would stay empty. 

“Well, isn’t he a dirty pig, Muwer?” 

“You hush up!” Spencer flushed as Catherine’s grave 
eyes rested on his. 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


35 

“Amelia says she wants some peas picked. The basket 
is in the woodshed.” 

“I picked ’em last,” said Marian. 

“You never did!” Spencer’s anger bubbled up. 
“You-” 

“And some potatoes,” continued Catherine, calmly. 
“If you aren’t too cantankerous, Spencer might dig those, 
and Marian might pick the peas.” 

Spencer dug his toe into the turf. 

“Letty dig!” Letty pulled at Catherine’s hand, her 
lower lip piteously imploring. “Letty dig, Muddie!” 

“I have some letters to write.” Catherine picked up 
Letty and started for the house. “I hope you two can 
see to the vegetables.” 

With a brief glance as she opened the door, she saw 
Spencer with a gruff “Aw, come along!” heading for the 
woodshed. 

Letty twisted and squirmed in her arms. “Dig!” she 
declared. 

“You can dig in your sand pile.” Catherine set her 
down. “Where is your red pail? You find that, while 
I find my pen.” 

She couldn’t go back to town before school opened. 
Her pen made tiny involved triangles at the edge of the 
blotter. Charles wouldn’t like it if she brought the chil¬ 
dren down so early. Still, that would give her a few 
days to set the house in order, to find a woman to take 
her place. What a queer thought! Henrietta had one 
in mind, she had said, a sort of practical nurse and house¬ 
keeper. There were the children’s clothes to see to. When 
could she do that? She wouldn’t have time for sewing. 



LABYRINTH 


36 

She dropped her head down on the table, her hands clasped 
under her forehead. I can’t do it, she thought. Too many 
things. Things! That’s it. Clothes, and laundry, and 
dirt in the corners. One hand groped out for the letter 
from Dr. Roberts, and she lifted her head. Her mouth 
set in a hard, thin line; the smears under her gray eyes 
made them larger, weary with a kind of desperation. 

“I remember so well your admirable work,” he had 
written. “I can think of no one with whom I should 
prefer to entrust this new piece of work.” 

If I don’t do it now, I never will, she thought. Never. 
Perhaps I haven’t the courage, or the endurance. 

“Mis’ Hammond!” came Amelia’s nasal call. “D’you 
want a fish? Earle’s here and wants to know.” 

“Yes.” Catherine drew her paper near. 

“Huh? D’you want one?” 

Catherine rose abruptly and hurried into the kitchen. 

“Buy one, Amelia,” she said. “Good morning, Earle.” 

“Well, he’s got cod and haddock and hake.” Amelia 
was stern. 

“Haddock,” said Catherine. “There’s change there in 
my purse.” 

When she came back to the porch, Letty was not in 
sight, nor did she answer Catherine’s call. Her red pail 
lay besjde the sand pile. 

“Oh, damn!” thought Catherine, as she flung her pen 
on to the table and started in quest of Letty. “If I don’t 
find her, I’ll regret it. Letty! Mother wants you!” 

Incredible that those small legs could travel so fast. 
Catherine peeked into the poultry yard. Last week she 
had found Letty there, trying to catch an indignant roos¬ 
ter. But Letty seldom repeated. 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


37 


As she rounded the corner of the house, she saw the 
child, and her own heart contracted terribly. Letty was 
lying on her stomach on a broad stone, part of the 
well curb, her small yellow head out of sight, her heels 
in the air. 

“Who left that cover off! If I call her, I may startle 
her-” 

Amelia appeared at the door, a water pail in her hand, 
her pale eyes popping out in her tight face. 

“Sh-h!” Catherine laid a finger on her lips, as she stole 
softly toward Letty, with knees that trembled. Her hand 
closed firmly over a kicking foot, and she dragged the 
child suddenly back. Then she sat down on the grass. 

Letty wriggled violently to be free. 

“Letty fish 1’^ she waved a bit of string. “Fish!” 

“Well, don’t that beat all!’’ Amelia stood over them. 
“Who left that well cover off?” 

“You didn’t?” asked Catherine wearily. 

“My land, no. I was just coming out to draw a bucket. 
I’ll bet that Earle done it.” 

“Letty, be still!” Catherine’s tone hushed the child. 
“I have told you never to go near that well, haven’t I ?” 

Letty smiled, beguilingly. 

“Pretty Muddie. Letty fish.” Her small face wrinkled 
into the most ingratiating smile she possessed. 

“You are a naughty Letty.” Catherine rose. “Come 
along and be tied up, like a bad little dog.” 

Letty’s wrinkled nose smoothed instantly, and her eyes 
closed for a scream. Catherine lifted her firmly into her 
arms, one hand over the open mouth. 

She sat in her room, waiting for Letty’s shrieks to 
subside. They did, soon, and she heard her chirrup. 



LABYRINTH 


38 

“Get ap! Get ap!” and knew the rope which tied her had 
become a horse. 

Fiercely she seized her pen and wrote. If she stopped 
to think again— Anything might happen, anyway! She 
stopped long enough to see clearly that if anything hap¬ 
pened while she, the mother, was away, she might have a 
load of self-reproach heavier than she could endure. It’s 
part of the struggle, she thought. Someone else can 
play watchdog, surely. There! She had committed her¬ 
self. A note to Charles. She was glad his conference 
had been so interesting. She had just accepted a position 
at the Bureau, like her old job there. She might come 
down a few days early. With love- 

VI 

The porter dropped the bags on the platform beside 
them, and held out his pink palm. Then he swung up 
to the step, as the long train began to move. Until the 
train was out of sight down the curving track, Catherine 
knew it was useless to start her procession. A fine drizzle 
filled the air under the shed, and the roofs of the street 
below them gleamed dull and sordid. 

“Spencer, will you take that bag? And Marian, this 

one-” Catherine pulled Letty up into her arm and 

with a suitcase dragging at her shoulder, piloted the chil¬ 
dren toward the stairs. “Daddy may be downstairs. 
Careful, Marian, on those wet steps.” 

There he was, at the bottom of the narrow, dark stairs. 
Catherine’s heart gave its customary little jump—always, 
when she saw Charles again, even after the briefest 
separation. 




AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


39 

Marian clung to his arm, Spencer let himself be hugged, 
Letty squealed with delight. Catherine looked at him, 
her eyes bright. He did look well! And he had a new 
suit, in all this rain! 

“Here’s a taxi, right here. Jump in. Where are your 
checks?” he bundled them in and handed the checks to 
the driver. 

“This is a crowded street, Mother, and awful loud!” 
said Spencer, his nose against the glass. 

“I like the big station better,” said Marian, adjusting 
herself with interest on the little folding seat. “Why 
can’t we get out there?” 

“This is nearer home, dear.” 

Daddy sat next to Mother, and the taxi rattled off, 
spurting slimy mud. 

“Hard trip, old girl?” Charles put his arm around 
Catherine’s shoulders. 

“Fair.” Catherine shone at him softly. “Sort of a 
job, putting the family to bed on a sleeper. But it’s 
over.” 

“An awful homely street,” muttered Spencer, his face 
doleful. 

“It’s got lots of things in it,” said Marian, wiggling 
down from her seat, and thrusting her face against the 
door. “See the folks and the stores and the street 
cars.” 

“It’s dirty.” Spencer turned from the window and 
looked darkly at Catherine. “I want to be back home,” 
he said. 

Catherine smiled at him. Poor boy! The little quiver 
of his nostrils was eloquent of nostalgia, of the rude 
necessity of adjustment. 


40 


LABYRINTH 


“Our street isn’t like this, Spencer,” she assured him. 
“You will like that better.” 

“Turned into a country kid, have you?” Charles 
reached for the boy’s arm. “Fine muscle! You’ll have 
to try some handball with me this winter.” 

Spencer lost his forlornness at once. “In the court? 
Oh, gee!” 

“I’ve got muscle too, Daddy.” Marian bounced across 
to her father’s knees. “Feel me! Can’t I play ball with 
you ?” 

“Letty play!” wailed Letty. 

The taxi jolted to a standstill in the traffic, and Letty 
was diverted by a large and black mammy descending 
from the street car close to the cab. 

“Girls can’t play,” said Spencer conclusively. 

“They can, too, can't they, Muvver!” 

“Your mother agrees with you, Marian,” said Charles. 
“But not on our handball courts, eh, Spencer?” 

Catherine flushed at the submerged note in Charles’s 
words. 

“Don’t you give my daughter an inferiority complex!” 
she said, lightly. 

But Charles went on, the note rising to the surface. 

“You won’t find the house in very good shape. I 
wasn’t expecting you so early.” 

The glow of the meeting was disappearing under the 
faint, secret friction. Catherine thought quickly, “He 
didn’t like it—the job, or my coming down. But he 
isn’t admitting it.” Aloud she said, “Did Flora desert 
you?” 

“Oh, no. She’s there, her mouth larger than ever. I 
meant the finishing touches.” 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


4i 


“We can give those.” 

“There’s Morningside Park!” Spencer’s shout was 
full of delight. “Rocks and trees an’ everything!” The 
taxi had left One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street and 
was bumping along the side street which bordered the 
park. The rocks shouldered up gray and wet through 
brown, worn shrubbery. 

“There’s where we had the cave,” cried Marian. “I 
remember it.” 

Up to the Drive, a few blocks south, and just around 
the corner the taxi halted. 

“Here we are!” Out they all scrambled, to stare up 
at the gray front, tessellated with windows, while Charles 
maneuvered the luggage. Catherine felt Spencer’s cold 
hand creep into hers; she held it firmly, knowing that he, 
too, had the sinking depression with which that mo¬ 
notonous dingy structure filled her. 

But Sam, the elevator boy, came out, all white grin 
and shiny eyes, to greet them and carry in the bags. 
Letty, as of old, clasped her hands over her stomach 
as the elevator shot up. The key clicked in the lock and 
the door opened on the familiar long hall. They were 
home again. 

“When we have breakfast,” declared Catherine, “we 
won’t feel so much like lost cats!” 

Flora, her gold tooth gleaming in her dark face, was 
loudly and cheerfully glad to see them. Catherine scur¬ 
ried for towels, and left the children scrubbing their 
hands, while she walked back through the hall with 
Charles, who had said he must go to his office 
immediately. 

They faced each other in the dim light. Catherine 


LABYRINTH 


42 

struggled to throw off the constraint which had settled 
upon her. 

“That’s a grand suit,” she said, laying her hand on 
his sleeve. “You better take your rain coat.” 

“It’s at the office. I am afraid I can’t come in for 
luncheon. I made this engagement downtown before I 
knew you were coming to-day.” 

“That’s good.” Catherine smiled at him. “Leaves 
me more time—there are endless things to do.” 

He looked at her, a curious reserve in his eyes. 

“You are really going to do it, take that job?” 

“I wrote you-” 

“When do you start?” 

“Monday. That’s why I’m here.” She couldn’t help 
that air of defense! “I had to have a few days to shop 
for the children, and get the house running.” 

“Hard on them, isn’t it?” 

“I thought a few days couldn’t matter so much to 
them as to me.” 

“No.” Charles turned the doorknob. 

“Charles!” Catherine seized his hand. “Are you— 
cross ?” 

“Of course not.” He sounded impatient. “But I have 
to get over to college sometime to-day.” 

“Have you changed your mind about my trying 
this?” 

“No.” He pursed his under lip, hesitatingly. “I didn’t 
know you were going to jump in so immediately. But 
it’s quite all right.” 

Catherine released his hand, and he pulled open the 
door. He stood a moment on the threshold, and then 
wheeled. 



AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


43 

“I—I’m glad you’re home.” Catherine was in his arms, 
her lips quivering as he kissed her. 

“There, run along!” She patted his shoulder, her 
eyes misty. 

But when he had gone, she leaned against the door w 
brushing hot tears from her lashes. She could hear the 
children, their voices raised in jangling. It was going to 
be hard, harder than she had thought. Bill was right; 
she would have a double job. She might have more than 
that, if Charles really carried a secret antagonism to her 
plan. Perhaps he was only gruffy; perhaps this was only 
a flicker of his unadmitted dislike of anything which 
threatened change, anything at least which he had not 
originated. But she saw, clearly, what she had felt as a 
possibility, that she had, for a time, his attitude as further 
weight to carry. That he wouldn’t admit his attitude 
made the weight heavier, if anything. As she went slowly 
towards the sounds of squabbling, she saw her attempt 
as a monstrous undertaking, like unknown darkness into 
which she ventured, fearing at every step some unseen 
danger; and heaviness pressed down physically upon her. 

VII 

Breakfast restored the temper of the children, and 
lifted part of her own heaviness. The day then stretched 
into long hours. The children couldn’t go out into the 
park, as the drizzle of the morning increased to cold 
rain. Toward noon Dr. Henrietta telephoned, and 
Catherine found her voice like a wind blowing into flame 
her almost smothered intentions. Henrietta was send- 


44 


LABYRINTH 


ing over that evening the woman she had mentioned: 
Miss Kelly. She could come at once, if Catherine liked 
her. She would have to come by the day, as she had an 
invalid mother. “We’ll run in soon, Catherine, Bill and 
I. Don’t you weaken!” 

Lucky Miss Kelly wouldn’t want a place to sleep, 
thought Catherine, as she went about the business of un¬ 
packing and reordering the apartment. With New York 
rents where they were it was all they could do to shelter 
the family decently. Was it really decent, she wondered, 
as she laid the piles of Spencer’s clothes away in the white 
dresser, and looked about the little court room where he 
slept. She went to the window. A hollow square, full 
of rain and damp odors; windows with drab curtains 
blowing out into the rain; window sills with milk bottles, 
paper bags—the signs of poor students, struggling to 
wrest education out of the jaws of hunger! And yet, 
when she and Charles had found this apartment, they 
had thought it fine. A large, wide, airy court; none of 
your air shafts. She glanced up where the roof lines 
cut angles against the sodden sky. Spencer did watch 
the stars there, on clear nights. She picked up the laundry 
bag, stuffed with soiled clothes, and left the room. 
Marian’s room was next, a little larger. She had planned 
to have Letty’s bed moved in there this fall, opposite 
Marian’s. Flora was on her knees, her yellowed silk 
blouse dangling from her tight belt, as her arm rotated 
the mop over the floor. 

“Had a pleasant summer, Flora?” asked Catherine, as 
she opened Marian’s bag. 

“Land, yes, Mis’ Hammond.” Flora whisked her 
cloth. “I’m gonna get married to a puhfessional man. 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


45 

He’s been showing me tenshions all summer. He ain’t 
committed hisself till last week.” 

“You are!” Catherine looked at her in dismay. 
“When?” 

“Oh, I ain’t gonna give up my work, Mis’ Hammond. 
Not till I sees how he pans out. I tried that once, and 
my las’ husband, he couldn’t maintain me as I was accus¬ 
tomed to be. So I says to my intended, I’ll get married 
to you for pleasure, but I keeps my job. He don’t 
care.” 

Catherine laughed. She knew that Flora had made 
earlier experiments in marriage, once to the extent of 
going back to Porto Rico. But she had, through all her 
changes of name, kept her good humor, her cleverness, 
and her apparent devotion to Catherine. 

She rose swiftly from her knees, her long string of 
green beads clinking against her pail of water. 

“I believes in keeping men in his place,” she said, with 
an expanding grin. “If you don’t, they keeps you in 
yours.” 

Catherine, adding the pile of Marian’s dirty clothes 
to the jammed laundry bag, laughed again. 

“I suppose so,” she said. “What am I going to do 
with all this laundry! You’d think we hadn’t washed 
all summer, the way things pile up.” 

“I’ll take that right home to-night, Mis’ Hammond. 
My sister can do it for you. My gentleman friend is 
stopping by for me in his car.” 

Catherine smoothed the cretonne scarf on the dressing 
table, adjusted the bright curtains, moved the little wicker 
chair to make room for Letty’s bed, and with a grimace 
at the glimpse of the court even through the curtains, 


LABYRINTH 


46 

went on to the living room. Letty was asleep in 
Catherine’s room. Spencer and Marian had scorned her 
hint that a nap might be good for them, and were sitting 
disconsolately in chairs drawn near the windows. Here, 
at least, was something beside too intimate suggestion 
of neighboring lives, even if the rain held it to-day in 
somber dullness. Beneath the windows the tops of trees 
pricked through the mist, as if one looked down into a 
forest; they were only the poplars and Balm of Gilead 
that grew on the steep slope of Morningside, but as 
Spencer had said, they were trees. And beyond them, 
extending far off into the dim gray horizon, the city— 
flat roofs, with strange shapes of chimneys, water tanks, 
or elevator sheds, merged to-day into dark solidity. On 
clear days, there was a hint of water in the distance, and 
the balanced curve of a great bridge. After all, thought 
Catherine, there was air in the bedrooms—you couldn’t 
expect birch trees and stars in the city—and they did have 
distance and sometimes the enchantment of the varying 
city from these windows. But it was queer—she smiled 
as Spencer eyed her over his book—queer that beauty, 
sunlight, air, should be things for which you paid money; 
that you had to think yourself fortunate if you could 
afford one window which did not open upon sordidness. 

“Moth-er, do you think I’d get too wet if I just went 
outdoors for five minutes?” Spencer was dolorous. “My 
throat is all stuffed up, and I’ll lose my muscle, just sitting 
still.” 

“No fun going out here,” grumped Marian. 

“In a little while I am going out shopping for dinner. 
Would you like to go?” 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


47 


VIII 

In raincoats and rubbers, each with a bobbing um¬ 
brella, Catherine sighing at the lost summer comfort of 
knickerbockers and boots, the three went out into the rain. 
The children sparkled as if they had escaped from jail. 
Spencer peered from under his umbrella at the heavy 
sky. 

“Mebbe when the tide turns the wind’ll change,” he 
said. 

“Huh!” Marian giggled. “In the city? That’s only 
in the country.” 

“I guess there is wind in town, too, and tides, aren’t 
there, Moth-er?” 

“Wind, all right!” The gust at the corner of Amster¬ 
dam Avenue caught their umbrellas like chips. They 
ducked into the wet wind, rounded the corner, and bent 
against it down the avenue. 

“Isn’t there any tide?” insisted Spencer. 

“Yes, of course,” Catherine answered, absently. Too 
far such a day, she supposed, to go down to her old 
market. That restaurant had changed hands again; a man 
behind the large window was even then drawing outlines 
for new gilt letters. The same hairdresser, the same 
idle manicure girl, intent on her own fingers, the drug 
store. They crossed the street, their feet wobbling over 
the cobblestones, slipping through the guttered water. 
There they were, at the market. 

“Where’s the kitty?” demanded Marian, her eyes bright 
in her rose-tanned face. 

“Kitty?” Catherine weighed the oranges in her fingers, 
and looked about for a clerk. 


LABYRINTH 


48 

“Why, yes, Muvver. That little gray kitty-” 

“He’d probably be grown into an old gray alley cat by 
this time.” 

Catherine frowned a little over her list. She should 
have come out earlier; everything looked wilted, picked 
over. Vitamines, calories, and the budget. The old 
dreary business of managing decently, reasonably. The 
country and a garden of your own did spoil you for these 
dejected pyramids. 

“There’s another thing,” she thought, as she watched 
the clerk hunt for a satisfying head of lettuce, stripping 
off brownish, slimy leaves. “When can I market, if I 
am downtown at nine? Perhaps this Miss Kelly can do 
it, with Letty, as I always have done.” A swift picture 
of Letty in her go-cart, herself with the basket hanging 
from the handle. Marketing had been her most intel¬ 
lectual pursuit. 

Back to the meat counter, with its rows of purplish 
fowls, their feathered heads languishing on their trussed 
wings, and the butcher, wiping his hands on the apron 
spotted and taut over his paunch. 

Marian, her eyes round and black, watched him sharpen 
his knife, while Spencer lingered near the door. Spencer 
didn’t, as he said, like dead things. Neither did Catherine, 
shivering as the butcher shoved aside the quivering lump 
of purplish-black liver. Queer, the forms that the de¬ 
mands of ordinary living took; forms you never dreamed 
of, when you entered living. 

“We should have brought two baskets!” Catherine 
looked at the bundles. 

“Send ’em over, lady?” 

“It’s so late.” 



AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


49 

“I can carry some, Moth-er.” Spencer came back from 
his post at the door. 

Marian had the bag of oranges under her arm, Spencer 
the basket, Catherine a huge bag of varied contents. A 
scramble at the door to open the three umbrellas, and 
they started up the street, the wind gusty at their heels. 

“Be careful crossing the street/’ warned Catherine. 
Marian, darting ahead, reached the curb, slipped, and 
sat down plump in a puddle, the oranges rolling off, bright 
spots on the wet cobblestones. Marian, dismayed, sat 
still, her mouth puckered. 

Catherine pulled her to her feet with a hand abrupt, 
almost harsh. The throbbing behind her temples which 
had begun the day before, in the steady drive of closing 
the house and getting off, had increased to a heavy drum. 
“Pick them up,” she said. “Don’t stand there like a 
ninny!” 

Spencer’s grin faded at the tone of her voice, and her 
flare of weary temper subsided as she watched them 
scurry after the fruit. They stowed the oranges into 
pockets, and corners of the basket. 

Finally they were home again. Flora’s loud “Glory, 
glory, halleleuia,” swept down the hall as they opened 
the door, and Letty’s accompaniment. 

“She’s found my drum!” Spencer fled to the kitchen, 
and a wail followed as Letty was reft of her instru¬ 
ment. 

Catherine pressed her lips firmly together as she hung 
her dripping coat on the rack. “Steady,” she said. “They 
are as tired as I am.” Then she thought: that’s the 
great trouble with being a mother. You never get away 
for a chance to sulk and indulge your bad temper. 


5o 


LABYRINTH 


Charles came in, with his blandest air of preoccupa¬ 
tion. Flora had prepared the dinner, and then gone 
home when her gentleman friend called for her, to cook 
her own evening meal, leaving Catherine to broil the 
steak and set things on the table. Since Letty had slept 
so long, she was permitted to sit in her high chair during 
dinner, where she conducted an insuppressible and very 
little intelligible conversation. 

“She certainly needs training,” declared Charles. 

“She isn’t often on hand for dinner,” said Catherine, 
wearily. 

Spencer and Marian cleared away the table, while 
Catherine bathed Letty, deafening herself to the crash 
which came from the kitchen. What had Marian dropped 
this time? 

Then she heard them, chattering away to their father, 
with the occasional interruption of Charles’s deep laugh. 
She hung away Letty’s towels and garments, and let the 
water run for Marian’s bath. Wasn’t that Kelly person 
coming in? Would she, Catherine wondered, give the 
children their baths? Could she let anyone else do that? 
Those slender, rounded bodies, firm, ineffably young and 
sweet, changing so subtly from the soft baby curves of 
Letty into young strength. Oh, at every second there 
waited for her some coil of sentiment, of devotion, to 
hold her there, solid, unmoving, in the round of the past 
few years. 

She was too tired to-night to think straight. She 
called Marian from the door, and was answered by a 
demonstrating wail. 

“Not yet, Muvver. I have to see my Daddy.” 

But at last both she and Spencer were bathed and in 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 51 

bed. As Catherine turned out Spencer’s light, she heard 
the doorbell. 

“Who is it, Moth-er?” Spencer’s head came up from 
his pillow. 

“I don’t know, son. But you go to sleep.” 

“Mother—” His voice was low, half ashamed. 
“Mother, what makes me ache in here?” 

“Where?” Catherine hung over his bed. He drew her 
hand to his chest. 

“When I think about my porch—an’ everything.” 

“You better think about something here, Spencer.” 
Catherine’s words were tender. “Something you like 
here. That will cure your ache.” 

“But I can’t think up anything to think about! You 
tell me something nice-” 

“ ’F you talk to Spencer, you’d ought to talk to me, 
too,” came Marian’s sleepy protest from the adjoining 
room. 

“Sh-h! You’ll wake Letty.” Catherine’s mind moved 
numbly over Spencer’s city likes. “Spencer, you might 
think about Walter Thomas. You can see him soon-” 

“Well.” Spencer sounded very doubtful. But Charles 
called her, and Catherine said good night to him and to 
Marian. 

It was Miss Kelly who had rung. Catherine sat down 
in the living room, brushing her hair away from her face, 
to which weariness had given a creamy pallor under the 
summer tan, and wished furiously that she was not so 
tired, that she could see into this rather plump, sandy, 
stubby person who sat opposite her, with calm, light blue 
eyes meeting her gaze. She looked efficient, if not 
imaginative. Well, the children had imagination enough, 




LABYRINTH 


52 

and if Henrietta thought Miss Kelly would do, surely 
she would. Charles had retired into his study. Miss 
Kelly folded her plump hands in her lap and looked down 
at her round, sensible shoes as Catherine spoke of Dr. 
Gilbert’s high recommendation. 

She couldn’t come before Monday. She liked nursing 
better, but the hours were so uncertain, and her mother 
needed her. Yes, she had cared for children before. 
She had always, for several years, had twenty-five dollars 
a week, when she lived in her own home. 

H-m, thought Catherine, that will make one large dent 
in my wages! But I must have someone, and I can’t fill 
my place for nothing. So Monday morning, about eight. 
Too bad the children were in bed, but then on Monday 
Miss Kelly could see them. 

When Catherine had closed the door on the last de¬ 
scending glimpse of Miss Kelly’s round face behind the 
elevator grill, she hurried back to the study. Charles 
looked up from his book. 

“Did you like her, Charles? You do think she looks 
capable ?’’ 

“She has an air of honest worth.” Charles laid aside 
his book. “Did you hire her?” 

Catherine nodded. 

“I shouldn’t care to have you supplanted by that face, 
if I were Letty—or Spencer—or-” 

Catherine moved around to the desk to the side of his 
chair, her fingers twisting together in a nervous little 
gesture. 

“She looks sensible and good natured, and Henrietta 
says she is fine. I’ve got to try someone.” 

“I suppose you must.” 



AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


53 

Catherine, balancing on the edge of the desk, looked 
steadily at her husband. He was holding his thoughts 
away from her, out of his eyes. 

“It’s mostly Letty, of course,” she said. “The others 
will be in school.” She sighed. “She can come Monday, 
the day I start.” 

Then they were silent. Charles rubbed his thumb along 
the edge of his book, and Catherine watched him, her 
gray eyes heavy. 

No use talking about it to-night, when she was so 
tired. She pushed the affair away. 

“Poor Spencer is homesick for Maine,” she said. “He 
wanted to know why he ached-” 

“He needs to get out with boys more,” said Charles 
sharply. “He’s too notional for a boy his age.” 

Catherine felt a quick flicker of heat under her eyelids. 
Charles had said that before this summer. 

“I want him to be a man,” he continued, “not a senti¬ 
mental little fool.” 

“I think you needn’t worry about that.” Catherine 
was icy. Then suddenly she slipped forward to the arm 
of his chair, her head down on his shoulder, one hand 
up to his cheek. “Good Lord, I’m tired! Don’t talk 
about anything, or I’ll fight!” 

Charles pulled her down into his lap and held her 
close. 

“That’s more like it.” His mouth was close to her 
ear. “Sitting off and staring at me! Silly old girl-” 

Catherine laughed, just a weak flutter of sound. 

“Call me names! But hug me, tighter!” She laughed 
again. Words, she thought—you can’t get a person with 
words. They stand between you like a wall. 




54 


LABYRINTH 


“You’d better go to bed. You feel limp as a dead 
leaf.” 

“Yes.” She stretched comfortably. “In a minute-” 

IX 

Catherine sat at one of the living-room windows, the 
floor about her chair littered with packages, the result 
of her shopping for the children. She unwrapped them 
methodically, clipped a name from the rolls of tape in 
her basket, and sewed the label in place. Spencer Ham¬ 
mond; Marian Hammond; Letitia Hammond. She was 
thankful that none of them had a longer name! After 
three gloomy days the sun shone again, pricking out spots 
of red in the roofs of the distance, falling in splotches 
of brilliance on the white stuff Catherine handled. The 
children were playing in the dining room, where the 
east windows admitted the broad shafts of sunlight. 
Poor kids! They had begged her to go outdoors with 
them, but her mother had telephoned that she was com¬ 
ing in. 

Catherine had not known she was in town. She had 
been visiting her son in Wisconsin, George Spencer. 
Catherine had seen little of that brother since her own 
departure for college; he had married and gone west, 
sending back, at astonishingly frequent intervals, photo¬ 
graphs of his increasing family. Mrs. Spencer visited 
him at least once each year, returning always with de¬ 
lighted accounts of the children, of George’s business, of 
his wife. 

Catherine folded the striped pajamas and laid them 
on the pile at her right. Her thoughts drifted around 



AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 55 

her mother and the small apartment in the Fifties where 
she kept house for Margaret, the youngest of the family. 
Letty came in a little rush toward her. 

“Letty draw.” She spread the paper on Catherine’s 
knee. “For Gram.” Her yellow head bent over it 
intently. 

“What is it, Letty?” Catherine laid a finger softly 
on the little hollow just at the base of Letty’s neck, an 
adorable hollow with a twist of pale hair above it. 

“She says it’s a picture of her fishing,” called Marian. 
“Catching cunners. But I’m painting a good picture of 
our house for Grandma-” 

“Letty paint?” Letty looked up, her eyes crinkled. 

“Grandma will like a drawing just as well.” Catherine 
picked up a set of rompers. “Mother’s going to sew your 
name right on the band.” Letty watched a moment and 
then trudged back to her corner on the dining-room 
floor. 

What would her mother think when Catherine told her 
of her plan? Catherine’s hands dropped into her lap. 
She wouldn’t say much. She never did. But that little 
crinkle of Letty’s eyes was like hers! You saw her 
laughing at you. Since her own marriage Catherine had 
wondered about her mother, and the last few months, 
while she had struggled with her moods and desires, she 
had found that the admiration she had always felt had 
gathered a tinge of curiosity, or speculative wonder. How 
had her mother attained the lively serenity, the animated 
poise, the quiet, humorous tranquillity with which she 
bore herself? Catherine remembered her father only as 
a somewhat irritable invalid; the accident which had 
injured him and finally killed him had happened when 



LABYRINTH 


56 

she was young, and Margaret a mere baby. And yet, 
somehow, her mother had seemed to keep a whimsical 
invulnerability. She had sent them all to college, how¬ 
ever she had managed even before the cost of living 
gained its ominous present-day sound. Only for the last 
few years, since Margaret, the last of them, had grown 
into a youthfully serious welfare worker, had Mrs. Spen¬ 
cer’s income been adequate to the uses for it. And yet— 
Astonishing adjustment, thought Catherine. As if she 
had found what she most wanted in life. As if things 
outside herself couldn’t scratch her skin. 

There was a scramble of children to the door at the 
ring of the bell, and Catherine rose, her work sliding 
to the floor. They loved her, the children. Was that the 
answer to her curiosity ? That her mother was essentially 
maternal? Catherine smiled as the delighted shouts of 
greeting moved down the hall toward her. No, that 
wasn’t the answer. They had never felt, Catherine, or 
George, or Margaret, that they were the core of her life; 
what was? 

“Cathy, dear!” How pretty she was, thought Catherine, 
as she bent to kiss her. A moment of encounter while 
she gazed at her; always Catherine had to pause that 
moment to regather all the outward details which during 
absence merged into her feeling of the person as a whole. 
She hadn’t remembered how dark the blue of her mother’s 
eyes was. Or was it only the small blue hat with the 
liberty scarf, and the new blue cape? 

“How smart you look!” she said. “And a new dress, 
too!” 

Mrs. Spencer slipped off her cape with a little twirl. 
“Paris model, reduced.” She handed the cape to Spencer. 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


57 

“It’s pretty, Grandma.” Marian touched the blue silk. 
‘‘Little beads all over the front.” 

“You certainly look well!” Mrs. Spencer settled her¬ 
self in a rocker, unpinned her veil, let Marian take her 
hat, and upon insistence from Letty, allowed her to hold 
the silk handbag. “Now please put my things all to¬ 
gether, won’t you?” She ran her fingers through her 
soft gray hair. Catherine watched her with tender eyes. 
Something valiant about those small hands, white and 
soft, with enlarged knuckles and fingers a little crooked, 
marked by hard earlier years. 

Not until after luncheon did Catherine talk with her 
mother. The children had to show her their pictures; 
Charles came in, and Mrs. Spencer wanted to know 
about his new work; dinner had to be planned. Finally 
Letty was stowed away for her nap, and Spencer and 
Marian, with the promise of a walk when she woke, went 
off to read. 

“I’ll help you with that sewing.” Mrs. Spencer 
threaded her needle. “You’ve done your shopping in a 
lump, haven’t you? I thought you usually made some 
of these things.” 

“I won’t have time this year.” 

Catherine was half afraid to tell her. Her proposition 
sounded absurd, as if she heard it through her mother’s 
ears. But Mrs. Spencer listened quietly. 

“That’s what Charles meant, then,” she said. 

“He spoke of it?” Catherine looked up. 

“He asked if I had heard how modern you had sud¬ 
denly become.” 

Catherine snapped her thread. She wondered why 
she had felt this desperate need to make her mother 


LABYRINTH 


58 

approve of her scheme, and Charles, too. Wouldn’t 
approval come after she had carried it through, if she 
could ? 

“Do you think me foolish—or wicked?” 

Mrs. Spencer patted the tape into place on the blouse 
she held. 

“Not at all, Cathy,” she said. 

“But you don’t think I ought to do it?” 

“That is for you to decide. You say you have found 
a nurse?” 

“Yes.” 

“Did Dr. Henrietta Gilbert suggest this to you?” 

Catherine’s head came up at that, but her irritation 
scurried off into amusement; her mother looked so guile¬ 
less, stitching with busy fingers. 

“You don’t see, then, that I can’t help it? That I 
must try something? Oh, Mother, I’ve thought and 
thought-” 

“Yes, that’s just it. You think too much. You always 
thought, Cathy. That’s why I was relieved when you 
met Charles. You didn’t think much for a while, at least, 
and I hoped”—Mrs. Spencer was looking at her, her head 
on one side, her eyes bright, her mouth turning up in a 
funny little smile—“I hoped your thinking days were 
over. But it’s in the air so. Women seem to take pride 
in being restless, unhappy. We were taught to consider 
that a sin.” 

“Is that why you’re so nice?” > 

“No.” Mrs. Spencer smiled. “Maybe my children 
were smarter than yours. I didn’t find them such bad 
company.” 

“Oh, that’s not it!” Catherine cried out. Then she 



AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


59 

laughed. “Mother, you’re outrageous. You’re making 
fun of me, just as if-” 

“As if you panted to be a missionary again.” 

“But I was only a child then. That was amusing.” 

“Yes. You didn’t think so, then.” Mrs. Spencer 
folded the blouse neatly. “Hasn’t Spencer grown tall! 
I see you’re buying eleven-year-old clothes for him.” 

“Well”—Catherine’s mouth was stubborn—“I’ll just 
have to show you! And Charles, too. He thinks it’s a 
whim, I know.” 

“He hasn’t objected?” 

“Oh, no. Not in words. He wouldn’t.” 

“Poor Charles. These modern women in your own 
home!” Mrs. Spencer’s eyes crinkled almost shut. “Do 
you know why I came back early? Your sister Margaret 
has a modern turn, too.” 

“But she’s not in town yet.” 

“No. She wrote, asking if I wouldn’t like to stay with 
George this winter.” 

“Why?” 

“I suppose she thinks a mother is a sort of nuisance. 
She wants to set up housekeeping with her friend.” 

“The little wretch!” 

“Not exactly. But I did want that apartment myself, 
as I am fond of it. I think I’ll take a roomer.” 

“Mother!” Catherine stared at her. 

“She’s been reading something a German wrote. What 
is his name? Freud. She’s been thinking, too, I am 
afraid.” 

Catherine was silent; she recognized her instinctive 
protest as a flourish of habit, of righteousness for some¬ 
one else. After all- 




6o 


LABYRINTH 


“She needn’t be so apologetic,” said Mrs. Spencer de¬ 
liberately. “If she doesn’t need me, I shall be glad to 
find someone nearer my own age.” 

Letty’s deep voice announced her awakening. Mrs. 
Spencer decided to walk over to Riverside with Catherine 
and the children, as she could go on downtown from 
there by bus. After several minutes of agitated prepa¬ 
ration, a frantic search for roller skates, they were in the 
hall, Letty rolling noisily along on her wooden “Go- 
Duck,” her busy legs waving like plump antennae. Cath¬ 
erine held the strap of Marian’s skates firmly; Marian 
was all for skating right down the hall. Then, just as the 
elevator came, Catherine remembered that she hadn’t paid 
Flora for the week. 

Flora’s gold tooth flashed as Catherine handed her the 
money. 

“I certainly is obliged,” she said. “My frien’ and I, 
we’re going on the Hudson River boat to-morrow, and I 
suspicions he’s short of cash.” 

“You’ll be in early on Monday, Flora? Miss Kelly 
is coming, and she’ll need you to show her about things.” 

“Sakes, yes. You can go about your business, Mis’ 
Hammond, with a light soul.” 

Flora was delighted at this venture of Catherine’s. 
Catherine thought, a little grimly, as she hurried after the 
family, that Flora was the only one in the house who was 
pleased. It’s her dramatic sense, she speculated, waiting 
for the elevator. I wish I had more of it myself, and 
Charles, too. 

The sharp blue clarity of the air was like a sudden 
check rein, pulling Catherine’s head up from doubtful 
thoughts. As they waited at Amsterdam Avenue for the 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


61 


car to rumble past, she glanced up the street; in the fore¬ 
ground the few blocks of sharp descent, and then the 
steady climb for miles, off to the distance where street 
and marginal buildings seemed as blue as the sky. It 
was like a mountain, with blue-gray shadows across the 
canyon of the street, and jagged cliffs of buildings merg¬ 
ing into solid rock up the slope. She reached for the head 
of Letty’s red duck. “You better walk across the street, 
Letty.” 

“No! Ducky go!” and bumping over the cobblestones 
it went, propelled vigorously, while Spencer and Marian 
stumbled along on their skates. 

The walk through the half block of park behind the 
University buildings was smooth sailing. Catherine and 
her mother followed the children. “Wait for us at the 
gate!” warned Catherine. 

At last they were across the Drive and safe on the 
lower walk of the park. 

“Here’s my old bench.” Catherine sat down with her 
mother. “I can see clear to those steps from here.” 

Spencer was off with a whoop, his figure balancing 
surely as he sped. Marian chased him, a determined 
erectness in her body. Letty paddled after them, chanting 
loudly to her duck. 

“When school opens,” Catherine sighed, “they’ll have 
some exercise, poor chickens. City life isn’t easy for 
them.” 

“It’s no place for children.” Mrs. Spencer watched 
a passing group, a beruffled little girl yanking fretfully 
at the hand of her nurse, a small, fat boy howling in tear¬ 
less monotony. “Not even a yard.” 

“We talked about a suburb last year. But Charles 


62 


LABYRINTH 


hates the idea of commuting, and he is so busy with his 
additional work that he’d never be home at all.” 

“Won’t you miss these little expeditions with your 
children?” 

Catherine looked hastily at her mother. But the bright 
blue eyes were apparently intent on a tug steaming along 
the river. The tide was running swiftly down, swirling 
off into the quiet water near shore bits of refuse, boxes, 
sticks, which caught the sun in dazzling sham before they 
drifted into ugly lack of movement. 

“They don’t need me when they are playing here,” 
said Catherine. “Anyone would do, just to watch them.” 

“I wonder,” said her mother. “I see some of these 
nurses do outlandish things.” 

“Miss Kelly looks intelligent and kind.” Again stub¬ 
bornness in Catherine’s mouth, in her lowered eyelids. 
“And I might as well admit, I’m reaching the place where 
I won’t be either of those things. You’d be ashamed of 
your daughter if you knew how peevish she can get!” 

“Catherine, dear”—Mrs. Spencer laid her hand softly 
on Catherine’s—“you know I don’t mean to interfere. 
But are you sure you haven’t just caught the general un¬ 
rest, in the air and everywhere?” 

“Where did it come from?” The children were coast¬ 
ing toward them, down the little hill. “Why do I feel it?” 

“Oh, the war, no doubt.” 

“The war! Blame that for my hatred of this dreadful 
monotony, my lack of self-respect, my—my grubby, dingy, 
hopeless feeling!” 

“I can see you have your mind made up.” Mrs. Spencer 
caught Marian as she tumbled, laughing, against the 
seat. 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


63 


“I beat Spencer back!” 

“Come on and I’ll beat up the hill!” Spencer wiggled 
to a standstill. 

A wail went up. Letty and her duck were upside 
down, a jumble of legs and red wheels. Spencer clat¬ 
tered away to rescue her, Marian after him. 

Mrs. Spencer began with a little chuckle a story of 
George’s two youngest children. Catherine relaxed, con¬ 
tent to leave her own problem. Her mother had said 
all she meant to say. The sun dropped lower and lower, 
until it seemed to catch on the sharp margin of the New 
Jersey shore and hang there, red, for long minutes. The 
tide had slackened and the water caught a metallic white 
luster. The park was almost deserted now. Finally 
Catherine called the children. They came; she smiled at 
their scarlet cheeks and clear eyes, their smudged hands 
and knees. 

“Home now, and dinner.” 

“See the gold windows!” Spencer pointed to the 
massed gray buildings above the park. 

“That’s the sun,” explained Marian, panting up the 
steps. 

They waited with Grandmother until a bus lumbered 
to a halt, and they could wave her off down the Drive. 

X 

Charles came into the hall as they entered, clattering 
skates and duck. 

“Hello!” He pinched Letty’s cheek. “Where you 
been?” He moved close to Catherine and continued, in 
a confidential undertone, “I thought you’d be here. I 


64 LABYRINTH 

V 

brought Miss Partridge in. Don’t you want her to stay 
to dinner?” 

Catherine, with a swift glance at the disheveled group, 
and a swifter consideration of food—what had she told 
Flora to prepare?—shrugged. 

“Of course,” she said. She concealed a secret grin 
at the relief which ran over Charles’s nonchalance. In 
the old days—how long ago!—one of her most sacred 
lares had been just that, that Charles should feel free 
as air about bringing any one in at any time. What 
was home for? But with three children, perhaps she 
burned less incense at that altar. She was moving toward 
the door of the living room as she thought. 

“Here’s my wife and family, Miss Partridge.” 

“I am glad you waited for us.” Catherine disen¬ 
gaged herself from Letty’s fingers and went to meet the 
woman who was rising from the window. “I have 
wished to meet you.” Catherine smiled as she spoke; her 
smile touched her face with a subtle irradiance, charm¬ 
ing, completely personal. She’s younger than I had 
supposed, Catherine was thinking, and quite different. 

“Dr. Hammond urged me to wait.” Her voice was 
clear and hard, like a highly polished instrument. Her 
manner was as cool and detached as the long white 
hand she extended. “And this is the family?” 

“Letitia, Marian, and Spencer,” announced Charles. 
Catherine watched them make their decorous greetings 
with a little flicker of pride. Sometimes Marian had 
ridiculous fits of shyness and wouldn’t curtsey. “You’ll 
have to test them, Miss Partridge,” Charles went on. 
“See if my paternal bias misled me in my tests. Their 
I. Q.’s seem satisfactory.” 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE „ 65 

“Of course they would!” Miss Partridge’s smile lifted 
her short upper lip from a row of even teeth so shining 
that they looked transparent. “Such a handful must 
keep you busy, Mrs. Hammond. You’ve just come in 
from the country, haven’t you?” 

“Good Lord!” thought Catherine. “I’m to be treated 
like an adoring mother.” Her level glance met the 
dark brown eyes for an instant; she felt a queer clatter, 
as if she had struck metal. Aloud she said, “Won’t you 
have dinner with us, Miss Partridge? I should enjoy 
hearing your side of all these new schemes.” 

“That’s it.” Charles was hearty, insistent. “Let me 
take your wraps.” 

Elegant, slim, in soft taupe tailor-made, close-fitting 
velour hat. She gets herself up well; Catherine was 
aware suddenly of her own appearance in rough tweed 
coat and last year’s hat with its bow of ribbon rather 
wilted. Not so hasty, she warned herself; look out, or ^ 
you’ll have a rooted dislike out of this feeling. Queer, 
how some women heighten their femininity by tailored 
clothes. Miss Partridge, without a demur, had stripped 
off her jacket and removed her hat. Her blouse of dull 
gleaming silk fitted closely about her throat, her dark 
hair was wound in a heavy braid about her smooth, small 
head; lovely skin, with^Bfcm^ luster. Catherine noted 
in a flash the heavy links, the small bar of 

jade that fastened the collarf%e chain of dull silver and 
jade which looped into the belt. She’s the sort that 
affects the masculine for more subtle results, was the 
swift conclusion, as she ushered the children out of 
the room. 

It was a nuisance, having a maid who couldn’t stay 


66 


LABYRINTH 


to serve dinner. But in other ways Flora couldn’t be 
touched, and they did like not having to house her. 
Catherine heard the tone of that clear, hard voice as she 
moved from bathroom to kitchen, lighting the gas under 
the vegetables, supervising Letty’s supper and bath. Is 
she brilliant, or shrewd, she wondered, as she directed 
Spencer in his grave attempt to lay another place at 
the table. She is young to have achieved her reputation. 
Has she one, or has she made Charles think she has? 
Don’t be a cat! 

At last Letty was in bed, the children were clean, 
the chops were broiled, the corn steamed on the platter, 
and with a last glance at the table, Catherine went to 
the living-room door. 

“Dinner is ready,” she said. “We have a maid by 
the day, who goes home at six,” she explained, and 
then stopped. She wouldn’t apologize! 

As they seated themselves, Letty’s shout broke across 
the hall. 

“Lady kiss duck! Lady kiss Ducky goo’ ni’.” 

“Spencer, please tell Letty we are at dinner.” 

But Letty’s shout gained energy. 

“That’s one of her rites,” said Charles. “Miss Part¬ 
ridge might as well be initiated at once. Come along!” 

Catherine laughed at Marian’s distressed face. 

“Muwer, isn’t Letty awful! A strange lady-” 

Charles and Miss Patridge were back, and Marian 
sank into embarrassed silence. 

“Isn’t she an amusing baby, Mrs. Hammond!” Miss 
Partridge unfolded her napkin with a lazy gesture; her 
smile disclosed her teeth, without touching her large 
dark eyes. 



AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 67 

“She’s the most stubborn one of the family,” said 
Charles. 

It was difficult to play a continuous part in the con¬ 
versation when you had to leave half your mind free for 
food and drink, thought Catherine, as dinner moved along 
under her guidance. She didn’t, she discovered, know 
half that Charles had been doing all summer. Miss 
Partridge had assisted in the summer-school work, to 
begin with. Time for salad, now. Spencer helped clear 
the first course away, breathing heavily as he pondered 
over his movements with the plates and silver. Catherine 
brought in the huge green bowl, filled with crisp, curling 
leaves, and Spencer followed with the plates of cheese 
and crackers. As Catherine poured the dressing over the 
leaves and stirred them, her hands moving with slow 
grace, she picked up the threads of the talk. Miss Part¬ 
ridge thought a family must be illuminating; you could 
watch instincts unfold. And Charles—“I tried Spencer, 
to see if he had that prehistoric monkey grip, and Cath¬ 
erine thought I was endangering his life. But you’re 
so busy keeping them fed and happy that you haven’t 
time to experiment.” 

When dinner was over, Catherine stood in the living- 
room door. 

“If I may be excused for a few minutes,” she said. 

“Is it dishes, Mrs. Hammond?” Miss Partridge turned 
from the window, where Charles had been pointing out 
the view. “I’m not a bit domestic, but I think I could 
wipe them.” 

“Oh, no, thank you.” Catherine smiled. “Just the 
children.” 

They were in Spencer’s room, arguing in low tones 


68 


LABYRINTH 


about which chair Marian was to have. Catherine ad¬ 
justed the reading lamp, suggested that Spencer curl 
up on the end of his bed. “Now you may read for a 
whole hour,” she said. “Then Marian must bathe. If 
you will call me, I’ll rub your back for you.” She started 
toward the door. “You will be quiet, won’t you,” she 
asked, “since we have a guest?” 

“Of course, Muvver,” said Marian. “Isn’t she a hand¬ 
some lady?” 

“No, she isn’t,” said Spencer, loudly. 

“Remember Letty’s asleep just next door.” 

Catherine stopped outside their closed door. They 
were quiet, dropping at once into their stories. Good 
children. She brushed her hair from her forehead with 
an impatient hand. “I feel like—like a nonentity!” she 
raged. “Almost as if I were invisible. Not there to be 
even looked at. Perhaps I am jealous, but it doesn’t 
feel like that. She’s not the vamp type. Too smooth 
and egoistic. It’s what Charles can do for her, not 
Charles that she is after. O, well-” 

But before she had returned to the living room the 
bell rang. Henrietta and Bill! 

Catherine held out her hands, one to each, and drew 
them into the hall. 

“You dears!” she cried. “I am glad to see you. 
Come in.” 

She stepped back into visibility with their entrance. 
Henrietta had met Miss Partridge at Bellevue one day. 
William bowed with his usual courtly silence. 

“Did you like Miss Kelly?” demanded Henrietta, as 
she settled into the wing chair before Miss Partridge 
had it again. “She came in, didn’t she?” 



AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


69 


“She’s coming Monday.” 

“Is Monday the great day?” Bill was looking at her, 
and Catherine smiled swiftly at the warm, quiet friend¬ 
liness of his eyes. 

“Monday!” she declared. “I telephoned Dr. Roberts 
this morning.” 

“Isn’t it fine, Miss Patrridge”—Henrietta turned 
briskly to her—“this move of Mrs. Hammond’s.” 

“I haven’t heard about it.” Miss Partridge’s dark, 
smooth brows lifted. 

Did Charles look uneasy, almost guilty, as he stretched 
out in his armchair and fumbled in the box of cigars? 

“You haven’t?” Henrietta grinned slyly at Catherine. 
“Haven’t you heard that Mrs. Hammond is renouncing 
the quiet, domestic life for a real job?” 

“Why not say exchanging jobs?” Charles was intent 
on the end of his cigar. 

“Or annexing a second job?” That was Bill’s quiet 
voice. 

“I am going to work at the Lynch Bureau,” explained 
Catherine, “as investigator.” She felt a flash of delight 
in the astonishment which rippled briefly over Miss Part¬ 
ridge’s smooth face. Knocked down her first impression, 
she thought maliciously. 

“Really? How interesting!” Miss Partridge smiled. 
“But what will your sweet children do?” 

“They’ll go to school and have an efficient nurse,” said 
Henrietta abruptly, “and they’ll be vastly better off 
when they aren’t having the sole attention of an intelli¬ 
gent woman like their mother. And that’s that!” She 
dangled her glasses over her forefinger. “Did you decide 
that girl was malingering, Miss Partridge ? She certainly 


LABYRINTH 


70 

had no physical symptoms. Just a case we ran into the 
other day,” she added, to Catherine. 

Charles, in answer to a query from Bill, had started 
a long and eager explanation of an industrial test he had 
been working up. 

Catherine noticed that even as Miss Partridge answered 
Henrietta’s question, her eyes had turned to Charles 
and Bill. “Is your husband a doctor, too?” she finished. 

“Heavens, no! Bill couldn’t be anything so personal 
as a doctor.” Henrietta laughed. “Could he, Catherine? 
He’s an engineer.” 

And presently, maneuvering cleverly, Miss Partridge 
was talking industrial tests with Charles, while Bill, 
puffing on his old pipe, let his half-shut eyes rest on her 
face, and then move across to Catherine. Was he 
smiling? 

Marian’s call came just then, and Catherine rose. 

“May I come along, Catherine? I haven’t seen the 
kids since that night in Maine.” Henrietta stopped at 
Spencer’s door, and as Catherine draped Marian’s slim 
body in the huge bath towel, she heard Spencer’s eager 
voice and Dr. Henrietta’s bluff tone. Marian, her face 
rosy and her dark hair rumpled, threw herself into 
Henrietta’s arms. “Hello, my Doctor!” she cried. 

They had a moment in the hall, when Henrietta looked 
firmly into Catherine’s eyes. 

“You stop your worrying,” she said. “You won’t 
swing your job unless you are clear of doubts. Brace 
up!” Her hand clasped Catherine’s. “If I can help you 
any way, be sure you let me know.” 

“Oh, you are a brick!” Catherine’s fingers were con¬ 
vulsive. “I do need you!” 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


7i 

The three in the living room looked up at their entrance. 

“Spencer sent you his regards, Bill. He wished me to 
tell you that he thought the cows recovered from the 
alarm your car caused them.” 

Bill removed his pipe, a slow smile on his gaunt face. 

“What cows?” demanded Charles. 

“Ghost cows, Charles. Not in your lexicon. But we 
felt them in that old barn, behind those stanchions.” 

When they had gone, Charles followed Catherine into 
the dining room, gathered a handful of coffee cups, and 
walked after her into the disorderly kitchen. 

“What’d you think of her?” he asked, casually. 

“Her being the cat?” Catherine grinned at him. She 
was at ease again, confident, the sense of nonentity gone. 

“Oh, Stella Partridge, of course. Fine person, isn’t 
she! No nonsense about her. Mind like a man’s.” 

“Is it?” Catherine stacked the dishes in the sink. 

“Has the qualities which are conventionally labeled 
masculine. Like that better?” 

The clatter of the garbage pail cover served for Cath¬ 
erine’s answer. 

“Bill’s a queer duck, now, isn’t he?” Charles lolled 
against the table, his long body making a hazardous 
oblique angle. “Never can make up my mind whether it’s 
shyness or laziness.” 

“I don’t think it’s either of those things, if you mean 
his lack of loquaciousness.” 

“Loquaciousness!” Charles threw back his head in a 
laugh. “That’s some word to use about Bill!” 

“I suppose I might as well wash these confounded 
dishes to-night.” Catherine turned the faucet and the 
water splashed into the sink. 


72 


LABYRINTH 


“Where’s your dusky maiden?” 

“To-morrow’s Sunday.” 

“Oh, say, it’s too bad I brought a guest in to-night, 
eh?” Charles waited comfortably for her assurance that 
it wasn’t too bad. 

“We’d hate the mess in the morning,” was Catherine’s 
dry retort. 

Charles was in extraordinary humor, the purring kind, 
thought Catherine, as her hands moved deftly among 
the dishes. And I’m not. I feel as if I should like to 
yell! She bent more swiftly to her task. Charles 
straightened his long angle and reached for a dish towel. 
He needn’t be magnanimous about wiping dishes! As 
he rubbed the towel round and round a plate, he began 
to sing. Somewhere—rub—the sun—rub—is shi-i-ining 
—rub! And Catherine had, suddenly, a flash of a pic¬ 
ture, smarting in her throat. The shabby little flat where 
they had first lived, before Spencer was bom; Charles 
wiping the dishes, singing, and Catherine singing with 
him, ridiculous old hymns and sentimental tunes. And 
always after the occasional guests had gone, the “gossip 
party,” as they labeled it, speculation, analysis, discus¬ 
sion of the people who had gone, friendly, shrewd, amus¬ 
ing, ending when the dish towel was flapped out and the 
dishpan stowed under the sink with the ritualistic but 
none the less thrilling, “There’s no one can touch my 
girl for looks or charm or brains!” and Catherine’s, 
“I’m sorry for everyone else—because they can’t have 
you!” 

Charles was echoing that old custom. But he didn’t 
realize it. And Catherine thought, with a stabbing bit¬ 
terness, “He has this feeling of comfort, not because 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


73 

we are here together, but because the evening has pleased 
him.” 

“What do you think is Bill’s secret, then?” Charles 
broke out. 

“He’s thinking of something else, not of that; he’s 
keeping me off his real center,” hurried Catherine’s 
thoughts. “I won’t be horrid and cross.” 

“Isn’t it lack of conceit?” She reached for the heavy 
frying pan. “Most of us have to talk to assert ourselves, 
to make folks listen to us. Bill hasn’t any ego-” 

“Oh, he’s got one, all right.” Charles balanced the pile 
of dishes precariously near the edge of the table. “Looks 
more conceited just to sit around with that cryptic 
expression-” 

“I don’t think so!” Catherine scrubbed vigorously 
at the sink. “He never looks critical.” 

“Couldn’t get a harsh word out of you about Bill, 
could I?” Charles jested a little heavily. “He’s always 
been that way, ever since he was a kid.” 

“Now when Miss Partridge”—Catherine resisted the 
impulse to say “your Miss Partridge”—“when she is 
silent, she looks too superior for words.” 

“Nonsense! I felt you were misjudging her. Now, 
she’s awake, ready to talk-” 

“About herself.” 

“Meow!” Charles grinned. “Though we did talk a 
good deal about the work. But, of course, that’s only 
natural.” 

“She didn’t even see me until Henrietta pointed at me 
and yanked me out of the pigeon-hole where she had me 
stuck.” 

“I hope you aren’t going to dislike her, Catherine.” 





LABYRINTH 


74 

Charles was serious. “Since I have to see her in con¬ 
nection with the clinic, it might be awkward-” 

“Thank the Lord, those are done!’’ Catherine turned 
from the sink. “Don’t worry, old thing,” she said, lightly. 
“I don’t hate her. We never have insisted on love me, 
love all my dogs, you know.” 

“I thought you’d appreciate her.” Charles was sulky. 

“She’s extremely handsome.” 

“She’s as warm hearted as she is brilliant, too.” 

“Like a frog, she is!” thought Catherine. But she 
reached for the button and snapped out the light. 

“I’ll hurry with my shower,” she said, preceding 
him up the hall. “Then you can have the tub. It’s 
late.” 

The bathroom was littered with the children’s dis¬ 
carded clothes. Little sluts! thought Catherine, gathering 
socks and shirts and bloomers. My fault, I suppose. I 
can’t make ’em neat! Like a nice warm tub myself, she 
growled, but Charles is waiting. Someone’s always 
waiting. 

She sat in the dark by the window in their room, while 
Charles splashed and hummed. Yellow cracks edged a 
few of the windows of the opposite wall, not many, as 
it was so late. Above the rim of the building she could 
see one great blue-white star with a zigzag of pale stars 
after it. Vega, she thought. Smiting its—what is it? 
Wonder if you could see stars at noon from the bottom 
of this court? It’s like a well. She drew her dressing 
gown close over her throat. It feels nasturtium colored, 
even in the dark, she thought, running her fingers over 
the heavy silk. Her one extravagance last spring, lovely 
flame-orange thing. Why, she hadn’t braided her hair. 



AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


75 

Her fingers were tired. They moved idly through the 
heavy softness. 

Her elbows on the window sill, she stared up at the 
star. Monday, she thought. Monday I shall have some¬ 
thing else to think about. Just as Charles does. This 
dreadful mulling over words and looks, hanging on the 
wave of an eyelash. That’s what women do, poor fools, 
trying to keep all the first glamor. Love. She heard 
the water gulping out of the tub. Love needs to be back 
of your days, therej but not the thing you feed on every 
second. Terrible indigestion, eating your heart out for¬ 
ever. Ugh, the sill was gritty with dust. She rubbed 
her elbows resentfully. That song Charles had hummed 
in the kitchen had sent her back through the years. She 
hadn’t wanted anything else in those days. Passion, its 
strange, erratic light making everything else seem tinsel. 
Tenderness, making all else in life seem cold. And quar¬ 
rels—the still, white silence, swift product of some unex¬ 
pected moment, so that you felt yourself imprisoned in an 
iceberg, from which you never could escape—that was 
part of the struggle of admitting another person, your 
lover, into yourself. And child-bearing. Peculiar, ec¬ 
static, difficult; commonplace physical preoccupation for 
long stretches of your life. Catherine shrugged. Per¬ 
haps, if you weren’t husky—she twisted from her 
cramped position—perhaps some women never got over 
childbirth. It did eat you up. Her mother would say 
she was thinking too much. She rose, stretching her 
arms above her head, the silk slipping away from them. 

Then, as she heard Charles scuffling along the hall—he 

% 

did need some new slippers—suddenly her heart opened 
and poured a golden flood over her being. Why, now, 


LABYRINTH 


76 

this instant, she loved him, and all the earlier passion was 
a thin tinkle against this sound—sunlight in the wide 
branches of a tree, and cold earth deep about the roots, 
and liquid sap flowing. 

Her fingers closed about the crisp curtain edge as 
Charles pushed open the door. 

“You in bed?” His whisper was cautious. “Oh, no.” 
He snapped on the light, while Catherine gazed at him, 
waiting. His pink pajama coat flopped open. 

“There isn’t a damned button on the thing. Got a 
pin?” He shuffled across to the dressing table. “My 
wife’s been to the country.” 

“Poor boy.” Catherine rushed to the sewing table in 
the corner. “I’ll sew ’em on if your wife won’t.” 
Ridiculous, enchanting. She pulled him down beside her 
on the bed, seized the coat, burying her knuckles against 
the hard warmth of his chest. “Don’t wriggle, or you’ll 
have it sewed to your diaphragm.” 

Charles was silent. Catherine’s wrist flexed slowly 
with the drawing of the thread. It’s like weaving a spell, 
she thought, with secret passes of my hand, to melt that 
hard resentment he won’t admit. She broke the thread 
and glanced up. Charles, with a quick motion, laid his 
cheek against the sweet darkness of her hair. 

“First time you’ve so much as seen me since you came 
back,” he said. 

“Too bad about you!” Catherine jeered softly. 

XI 

“It’s the Thomases on the ’phone.” Charles came out 
of the study. “They want us to come out this afternoon to 
see their house.” 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


77 

“Out where?” Catherine looked up from her book, 
while Spencer and Marian fidgeted for the reading to 
continue. 

“Croton. They’ve moved, you know. Bought a 
farm.” 

“Walter Thomas?” asked Spencer. “Has he got a 
farm ?” 

“Thomas says there are trains every hour, and we can 
stay for Sunday-night supper.” 

“But the children-” 

“I thought your mother was coming in.” 

“She may not wish to stay late.” 

“Well, you’ll have to decide. Thomas is waiting. It 
would be rather nice to get out of town for a few 
hours.” 

Catherine’s brows drew together. 

“We’re all right,” said Marian. “Go on away!” 

“Yes, you are.” Catherine sighed briefly. Charles had 
his air of “Are you going to deprive me of a pleasant 
hour?” 

“You wouldn’t go without me?” she asked. “Tell Mr. 
Thomas that if mother wishes to stay, we’ll come. We 
can telephone him.” 

Mrs. Spencer said she would like nothing better than 
a chance at the children without their interfering parents, 
and in the late afternoon Catherine and Charles set forth. 
The cross-town car was jammed; Catherine, from an un¬ 
comfortable seat just under the conductor’s fare box, 
watched the people about her with remote eyes. She 
hated these humid, odorous jams. She always crawled 
off into a dark corner of herself, away from the jostling 
and pushing of her body. Heavy, dull faces—she lifted 



LABYRINTH 


78 

her head until her eyes could rest on the firm solidity 
of Charles’s shoulder and head. Nothing professorial 
about that erect head, the edge of carefully shaved neck 
between collar and clipped fair hair that showed under 
the soft gray hat. But even the back of his head looked 
intelligent, alive. He turned suddenly, and over the 
crowd their eyes met in a mysteriously moving flare of 
acknowledgment. He grinned at her—he knew her 
hatred of such crowds; and turned away again. Catherine 
shivered a little. That was what she wanted to keep, that 
awareness of each other, that intimate self-recognition. 
She couldn’t keep it if she was worn down into dullness 
and drabness and stupidity. She had, she knew, stirred 
Charles out of his easy acceptance of her as an established 
custom, and for the day, at least, she had submerged his 
resentment. As the car stopped under the tracks she 
was thinking, if I can win him over to believe in what 
I am, what I want, inwardly, in his feeling, not in words, 
—then I can do anything! 

They sat together on the train and talked. Charles 
had spent one Sunday during the summer with the 
Thomases; they had a tennis court and chickens. Thomas 
had been promoted to Assistant Professor, but he kept 
his extension classes still, as the oldest boy was entering 
college this fall. 

“He was crazy about some old French verse forms that 
day. Couldn’t talk about anything else. Mrs. Thomas 
wanted to talk about the refinishing of the walls.” 

“I’ll wager she did. Verse forms interest her only as 
a means to the salary end.” 

“But she’s a fine type of woman, don’t you think?” 

Catherine shrugged. 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


79 

“She’s about as intellectual as a—a jellyfish. She’s 
not a jellyfish, though.” 

“Thomas gets enough enjoyment from his own 
mind.” 

They walked from the station through the crowded, 
dingy houses near the river, climbed a long hill, and at 
the top found the country, soft and lovely in the hazy 
September sunlight. As they climbed, the river dropped 
beneath them, opal-blue and calm, the hollows of the 
wooded Westchester hills gathered purple shadows, and 
on the slopes toward which they climbed a branch of 
maple flamed at times like a shrill, sweet note in the 
mellow silence. 

“It must be good for their children, living out here.” 
Charles sniffed at the air. “Smell that wood smoke! 
Bonfires, and nuts-” 

“How’d you like to climb that hill every night?” 

“Thomas has a flivver. There, you can see the house 
through those poplars.” 

The Thomases were on the porch, rising to meet them 
with a flurry of innumerable children and dogs and cats. 
Mrs. Thomas, small, pink, worried, with curly gray hair 
and a high voice; Mr. Thomas, of indifferent stature, 
with an astonishingly large head, smooth dark hair, near¬ 
sighted eyes behind heavy glasses, and a large, gentle 
mouth; the children—there were only five, after all, from 
Theodore, the eldest, who was curly and pink like Mrs. 
Thomas, down to Dorothy, the youngest, who already 
wore glasses as thick as her father’s. 

“I wanted Theodore to drive down for you, but you 
said you wanted to walk.” Mrs. Thomas jerked the 



80 LABYRINTH 

chairs into companionable nearness. “Quite a climb up 
our hill.” 

“Mrs. Thomas can’t imagine any one liking to walk,” 
said her husband. 

“Not a mother and wife, at least. Men don’t know 
what being on their feet means, do they, Mrs. Ham¬ 
mond?” 

Inquiries about the children, mutually. Admiration 
expressed for the view, for the house, room by room, for 
the poultry run which Theodore had constructed, for the 
tennis court, for the asparagus bed. 

“Now that the Cook’s Tour is ended, what about some¬ 
thing to eat, Mother?” 

The dining room was small, and warm from the sun¬ 
ning of the afternoon; the Thomas children chattered in 
high voices; Catherine sighed in secret as she looked at 
the elaborate salad, the laborious tiny sandwiches, the 
whipped-cream dessert in the fragile stemmed sherbet 
glasses, the frosted cake. But Mrs. Thomas, the lines 
in her pink cheeks a trifle more distinct, hovered in 
anxious delight over each step in the progress of this 
evidence of her skill and labor. 

“No, Dorothy, no cake. She has to be very careful 
of sweets, they upset her so easily. Do your children 
hanker for everything they shouldn’t have?” 

Theodore broke in with an account of the psychological 
tests he had taken for college entrance; there was a sug¬ 
gestion of pimples on his round, pink chin. Walter wanted 
to know when Spencer could come out; Walter was 
Spencer’s age, a chubby, choleric boy who kept rabbits 
and sold them to the neighbors for stews. Clara, just 
older, had reached an age of gloomy suspicion; her hair, 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


81 


which her mother was allowing to grow, now that Clara 
was older, fell about her thin shoulders in lank con¬ 
cavity. Catherine wondered .whether the contention be¬ 
tween Marian and Spencer sounded to outsiders like the 
bickering which ran so strongly here. Dorothy was a 
year older than Letty, but she did not talk so plainly. And 
that other boy, Percy—why name him that!—was being 
sent away from the table because he had pinched Clara. 

Inevitably the talk stayed on the level of the children, 
in spite of attempted detours on the part of Charles. Mr. 
Thomas ate with an absent myopic eye on Dorothy and 
the next older boy. 

But when at length they left the dining room, he was 
saying to Charles, “You recall those songs I spoke of? 
Thirteenth century? I’ve found a girl who does beau¬ 
tiful translations. A graduate student. She has an aston¬ 
ishing sense for the form.” He had come alive, suddenly, 
the blank, gentle mask of his face breaking into sharp, 
vivid animation. Catherine watched him, peering at his 
wife, glancing back at him. She didn’t care about the 
old verse forms, neither did his wife; but his wife didn’t 
care that he could come alive like that, apart from her. 
Perhaps when they are alone, thought Catherine, he has 
some feeling for her that compares with this—but I 
doubt it! 

“He’s as keen about those musty old papers as if they 
were worth huge sums.” Mrs. Thomas laid her hand 
on Catherine’s arm, as they stood on the edge of the 
porch, looking far down the valley. Mrs. Thomas had 
a way of offering nervous little caresses. “Men are 
queer, aren’t they?” Her forehead puckered. 

Catherine endured the hand, light, with an insinuating 


82 


LABYRINTH 


effect of a bond between them, the bond of their sex. 
We women understand, those fingers tapped softly. 

Later, half defiantly, in answer to a suggestion of Mrs. 
Thomas that Catherine take her place on the faculty 
women’s committee for teas, Catherine explained that she 
would be much too busy. She saw in the quick pursing 
of Mrs. Thomas’s little mouth the contraction of her 
eyelids, the rapid twists her announcement made as it 
entered Mrs. Thomas’s mind. Disapproval, hearty and 
determined; a small fear, quickly over, lest some discredit 
reflect on her position; a chilly covering of those emotions 
with her words, “Why, Mrs. Hammond, you’ve seemed 
so devoted to your children!” 

“Naturally.” Catherine was curt. “I am. But they 
needn’t suffer, any more than they did before while 
Charles was in France and I worked. I can’t see any 
loss to them.” 

“I hope you won’t regret it.” Mrs. Thomas drew her 
own brood into a symbolic shelter, as she flung her arm 
around Dorothy, who was at her knee with a picture 
book, clamoring unintelligibly to be read to. 

“Fine for you, Hammond. A family needs several 
wage earners, in these postwar days.” 

Charles laughed, but Catherine saw the flicker of un¬ 
easiness in his face. 

“But I'd hate to have to find a cook to supplant Mrs. 
Thomas.” 

“Ah, but you see, I can’t cook that way.” Catherine’s 
lightness covered the glance she sped at Charles. She 
hadn’t, then, touched his real feeling about this. Just a 
scratch, and she could see it. 


AN IDYLL—FROM THE INSIDE 


83 

“I don’t know what’s to become of us poor men”— 
he rose lazily—“unless we turn into housewives.” 

“You better take a turn at it, just to see what it’s like.” 
That was Mrs. Thomas, vigorously exalting her ability. 

“It was called husbandry once, wasn’t it?” Mr. 
Thomas smiled in enjoyment of his joke. “Must you go? 
It’s very early. Let us drive you down.” 

“The walk will be just what we need-” 

The evening was soft and black, with faint rustle in 
the autumn-crisped leaves of the trees that massed against 
the blue-black sky. Below them the river gleamed silver- 
dark. They went in silence down the hill, the gravel 
slipping under their heels. Then Catherine felt Charles 
groping for her hand, the warm pressure of his fingers. 

’“Rummy bunch of kids,” he said. And then, “That 
woman can cook, but that’s about all. She can’t impart 
gentle manners.” Catherine relaxed > 5 n content. He 
wasn’t huffy. “Too bad you have to tell people like that 
what you’re going to do. Let ’em see after you’ve suc¬ 
ceeded, I say!” 

“Oh!” Catherine’s voice was sharp with delight. 
“You think I will!” 

“Lord, yes. Of course. You’ve got the stuff.” 

Their clasped hands swinging like children’s, they came 
to the foot of the hill. 






















PART II 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 






PART II 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 

I 

Catherine clicked the telephone into place on her desk 
and sat for a moment with her hands folded on the piles 
of paper before her. Her cheeks felt uncomfortably 
warm. Ridiculous, that Dr. Roberts should have come 
to the door just as she told Charles where to find the 
shirts he wanted! He might have found them if he had 
tried. She wondered whether her voice had conveyed 
her embarrassment; Charles had said good-by abruptly. 
He was sorry not to see her, but he had to catch the 
One o’clock for Washington. No, he couldn’t stop for 
luncheon with her. He might be back Sunday night. 
She had a vivid picture of him, plowing through drawers 
and closets in frantic search for things right under his 
nose. 

Her hand reached for the telephone. She would call 
him for a moment, just for a good-by not so hasty. But 
Dr. Roberts, in the doorway, clearing his throat, said, 
“Can you let me have those tables now, Mrs. Hammond?” 
He pulled a chair to the opposite side of the desk and 
sat down. Charles and the messy packing of his hand¬ 
bag disappeared from Catherine’s thoughts. She spread 
several sheets of figures between them, the flustered 

87 


88 


LABYRINTH 


shadow in her eyes gone, and hard clarity in its place. 
Dr. Roberts, head of the educational section of the Lynch 
Bureau of Social Welfare, was a dapper little man with 
a pointed beard, whose fussy, henlike manner obscured 
the intelligent orderliness of his mind. 

“The state laws of requirements for teachers.” Cath¬ 
erine pointed to one table. “County requirements, country 
schools. I made a separate table for each. Now I’ll work 
out a comparative table.” 

“Excellent. Clear, graphic. May I take those?” He 
rose. “If you aren’t working with them now?” 

“No. I’m going through these catalogues now.” The 
dusty pile was at her elbow. “If I may have those sheets 
this afternoon, I’ll try some graphs.” 

When he had gone, Catherine’s eyes rested briefly on 
the telephone. Oh, well, Charles wouldn’t want the inter¬ 
ruption anyway. He would be home again on Sunday. 
She opened the catalogue on top of the pile and glanced 
through its pages, making swift notes on the pad under 
her hand. 

Finally she leaned back in her chair, twisting her wrist 
for a glimpse of her watch. Wh^w! Half past twelve, 
and she was to meet her sister Margaret for luncheon. 
She stood a moment at the window. Beyond the neigh¬ 
boring buildings the spires of the Cathedral splintered the 
sunlight; a flock of pigeons whirled into view, their 
wings flashing in the light, then darkening as they swirled 
and vanished—like the cadence of a verse, thought Cath¬ 
erine. Far beneath her lay an angle of the Avenue, with 
patches of shining automobile tops crawling in opposing 
streams. 

She gave a great sigh as she turned back to the office. 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 89 

A long, narrow room, scarcely wider than the window, 
lined with shelves ceiling-high, between them the flat desk 
piled with her work. Her work! Almost a week of it, 
now, and already she had won back her old ability to 
draw that thin, sliding wall of steel across her personal 
life, to hold herself contained within this room and its 
contents. 

She hadn’t seen Margaret since her return from Maine. 
She was to meet her at the St. Francis Luncheon Club for 
Working Women. As she stepped into the sunlight of 
the street, the slow flowing of the emulsion of which she 
was suddenly another particle, she had a sharp flash of 
unreality. Was it she, walking there in her old blue suit, 
her rubber heels padding with the other sounds, her eyes 
refocusing on distance and color after the long morning? 
She loved the long, narrow channel of the Avenue, hard, 
kaleidoscopic; the white clouds above the line of build¬ 
ings, the background of vivid window displays. She 
laughed softly as she recalled the early days of the week. 
Rainy, to begin with. She had thought, despairingly, that 
she couldn’t swing the job. The children stood between 
her and the sheets of paper. She had flown out at noon 
to telephone Miss Kelly, to demand assurance that life in 
the apartment hadn’t gone awry in the four hours since 
she had left. Queer. You seized your own bootstraps 
and lugged, apparently in vain, to lift yourself from your 
habits of life, of thought, of constant concern, and then, 
suddenly, you had done it, just when you most despaired. 
She walked with a graceful, long stride, her head high. 
An excellent scheme, Dr. Roberts had said. He had 
really entrusted her with the entire plan for this investiga¬ 
tion. And she could do it! 


90 


LABYRINTH 


Margaret was waiting at the elevator entrance, a vivid 
figure in the milling groups of befurbished stenographers 
and shoddier older women. She came toward Catherine, 
and their hands clung for a moment. How young she is, 
and invincible, thought Catherine, as they waited for 
the elevator to empty its load. Margaret had Catherine’s 
slimness and erect height; her bright hair curled under 
the brim of her soft green hat; there was something 
inimitably swagger about the lines of her sage-green wool 
dress and loose coat, with flashes of orange in embroid¬ 
ery and lining. In place of the sensitive poise of Cather¬ 
ine’s eyes and mouth, Margaret had a downright steadi¬ 
ness, an untroubled intensity. 

“How’s it feel to be a wage-earner?” She hugged 
Catherine’s arm as they backed out of the pushing crowd 
into a corner of the car. “You look elegant!” 

“Scarcely that.” Catherine smiled at her. “Now you 
do! Did you design that color scheme?” 

“I matched my best points, eyes and high lights of 
hair.” Margaret grinned. Her eyes were green in the 
shadow. “Ever lunched here ? I thought you might find 
it convenient. Lots of my girls come here.” 

They emerged at the entrance of a large room full of 
the clatter of dishes and tongues. 

“I’ll take you in on my card to-day. If you like it, 

you can get one.” Margaret ushered Catherine into the 

* 

tail of the line which filed slowly ahead of them. “This 
is one of the gracious ladies—” Margaret shot the half 
whisper over her shoulder, as she extended her green 
card. “A guest, please.” Catherine looked curiously at 
the woman behind the small table; her nod in response to 
the professionally sweet smile was curt. 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


9i 


“The patronesses take turns presiding,” explained 
Margaret, as she manipulated trays and silver. “That’s 
the sweetest and worst. Notice her dimonts!” 

They found a table under a rear window, where they 
could unload their dishes of soup and salad around the 
glass vase with its dusty crepe-paper rose. 

“It’s really good food,” said Margaret, shooting the 
trays across the table toward the maid. “And reasonable. 
It’s not charity, though, and the dames that run it needn’t 
act so loving.” 

Two girls saw the vacant chairs at the table, and 
rushed for them. One slipped her tweed coat back 
from shoulders amazingly conspicuous in a beaded 
pink georgette blouse; the other opened her hand¬ 
bag for a preliminary devotional exercise on her 
complexion. 

Margaret hitched her chair closer to Catherine. 

“Now tell me all about it.” She tore the oiled paper 
from the package of crackers; her hand had the likeness 
to Catherine’s, and the difference, which her face sug¬ 
gested. Fingers deft and agile, but shorter, firmer, com¬ 
petent rather than graceful. “Mother says you’ve hired 
a wet-nurse and abandoned your family. I didn’t think 
you had it in you!” 

“I know. You thought I was old and shelved.” 

“Just a tinge of mid-Victorian habit, old dear.” 

“You young things need to open your eyes.” 

“I have opened ’em. See me stare!” 

Were those girls listening? The georgette one was 
eying Margaret. The other, her retouching finished, 
snapped her handbag shut and began a story about the 
movies last night. Catherine was hungry; good soup— 


92 LABYRINTH 

why, it was fun to gather an unplanned luncheon on a 
tray in this way. 

‘‘Your old job?” proceeded Margaret. 

“A new study—teaching conditions in some middle- 
western states. I am to organize the work.” 

Margaret’s questions were direct, inclusive. She did 
have a clear mind. Her business training has rubbed off 
all the blurry sentiment she used to have, thought 
Catherine. 

“And you can manage the family as well?” 

“This woman Henrietta sent me is fine. It’s a rush 
in the morning, baths and breakfast. Flora can’t come 
in until eight, and I have to get away by half past eight. 
No dawdling.” 

“And the King doesn’t mind?” 

Catherine flushed. Margaret had dubbed Charles the 
King years ago, but the nickname had an irritating flavor. 
“He’s almost enthusiastic this week,” she said. “Now 
tell me about yourself. What’s this about your leaving 
Mother?” 

“Oh, I thought she might like to stay with George. In¬ 
stead of that, she’s turned me out, neck and crop, and 
taken on a lady friend. I’m house-hunting.” Margaret 
laughed. “Trust Mother! You can’t dispose of her.” 

“But I thought you were so comfortable-” 

“Too soft. You don’t know—” Margaret was 
serious. “I can’t be babied all my life. All sorts of 
infantile traits sticking to me. You got away!” 

“Mother said you’d been reading a foreigner named 
Freud.” 

“Well!” Margaret was vigorously defensive. “What 
of it?” 



BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


93 


Catherine dug her fork into the triangle of cake. 

“I thought Freud was going out. Glands are the 
latest.” 

“I bet Charles said that.” Margaret grinned impishly 
as she saw her thrust strike home. “Well, tell him I’m 
still on Freud. Anyway, I want to try this. Amy and I 
want to live together. When you wanted to live with 
Charles, you went and did it, didn’t you?” 

“I’m not criticizing you, Marge. Go ahead! Don’t 
bristle so, or I’ll suspect you feel guilty.” 

“I do.” Margaret had a funny little smile which 
recognized herself as ludicrous. “That’s just the vestige 
of my conflict.” 

“There’s another influx”—Catherine looked at the mov¬ 
ing line—“we’d better give up these seats.” 

“There are chairs yonder.” They wound between the 
tables to the other end of the room* where wicker chairs 
and chaise longues, screens, tables, and a mirror sug¬ 
gested the good intentions of the patronesses of the St. 
Francis Club. 

“You can lie down behind the screen if you’re dead, 
or read”—Margaret flipped a magazine—“read old copies 
of respectable periodicals. Here.” She motioned to a 
chaise longue. “Stretch out. I’ll sit at your feet. I have 
a few seconds left.” 

“How’s the job?” 

“All right. I spent the morning hunting for a girl. 
She’s been rousing my suspicious for a time. Going to 
have an infant soon. That’s the third case in two 
months.” Margaret clasped her hands about her knees; 
her short skirt slipped up to the roll of her gray silk 
stocking. “But I’ve got a woman who’ll take her in. 


LABYRINTH 


94 

She can do housework for a month or so before she’ll 
have to go to the lying-in home.” 

Catherine watched her curiously. There was some¬ 
thing amazing about the calm, matter-of-fact attitude 
Margaret held. 

“Do you hunt for the father?” 

“Oh, the girl won’t tell. Maybe she doesn’t know.” 

“If I had your job, I’d waste away from anger and 
rage and hopelessness about the world.” 

“No use.” Margaret shrugged. “Wish I could smoke 
here. Too pious. No.” She turned her face toward 
her sister, her eyes and mouth dispassionate. “Patch up 
what can be patched, and scrap the rest. I’m sick of 
feelings.” 

Catherine was silent. Margaret, as the only woman 
in a responsible position in a chain of small manufac¬ 
turing plants, occasionally dropped threads which sug¬ 
gested fabrics too dreadful to unravel. 

“Time’s up.” Margaret rose. “Directors’ meeting this 
afternoon, and I want to bully that bunch of stiff-necked 
males into accepting a few of the suggestions I’ve made. 
I have a fine scheme.” She laughed. “I make a list 
pages long, full of things, well, not exactly preposterous. 
Women would see them all. But they sound preposterous. 
And buried somewhere I have the one thing I’m hammer¬ 
ing on just then. Sometimes I get it, out of their dis¬ 
may at the length of the list.” 

“Here, I may as well go along.” Catherine slid out 
of the chair. 

“Will you be home Sunday?” Margaret stopped at 
the corner. Catherine had a fresh impression of her 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


95 

invincible quality, there in the sunlight with the passing 
crowds. 

“Charles is in Washington. Come in and see the 
children.” 

“The King’s away, eh?” Margaret waved her hand 
in farewell. “I’ll drop in.” 

At five Catherine was again on the Avenue, walking 
steadily north, an eye on the occasional buses. If she 
could get a seat! As the traffic halted, she saw a hint 
of movement at the rear of a bus ahead of her. Some¬ 
one was just getting out. She rushed for it, and clam¬ 
bered to the top just as the jam moved stickily ahead. 
Just one seat, at the front. This was luck. She relaxed, 
lazily conscious only of small details her eyes seized upon. 
When the bus finally swung onto the Drive, she straight¬ 
ened, drawing a deep breath of the fresh wind across the 
river. A taste of salt in it. She liked the sweep and 
curving dips of the Drive; the ride gave her a breathing 
space, a chance to shut off the hours behind her and to 
take on the aspect of the other life that awaited her. 
I’ll patch up that old fur coat, she thought, and ride all 
winter. Perhaps I may even afford a new one. Twenty- 
five a week for Miss Kelly. Another five for my 
luncheons and bus rides. If Flora will do the marketing, 
I’ll have to pay her more. I ought to help with the food 
bills, if we feed Miss Kelly, and pay for the clothes I buy 
for the children, since I would otherwise be making 
them. Oh ! This domestic mental arithmetic sandpapered 
away the shine of the two hundred and fifty a month 
which was her salary. But Charles couldn’t have addi- 


LABYRINTH 


96 

tional expenses this year. It wasn’t fair, when he had 
just reached a point at which they found a tiny margin 
for insurance and saving. Catherine rubbed her hand 
across her forehead; foolish to do this reckoning in her 
head; it always left her with that sense of hopeless fric¬ 
tion, like fitting a dress pattern on too small a piece of 
cloth—turning, twisting, trying. Charles had said, “Well, 
you know my income. We can’t manage any more outgo 
there. Not this year.” And at that, she didn’t see where 
she was going to get the first three twenty-five dollars for 
Miss Kelly. Next month, after she had her own first 
check—but now! She’d saved the first twenty-five on 
her own fall clothes. If Charles hadn’t had that heavy 
insurance premium this month, she might have borrowed. 
It would be fine, some day, to reach a place where their 
budget was large enough to turn around in without this 
fear of falling over the edges. Dr. Roberts had said, 
“Three thousand is the best we can do for you now, 
but later-” 


II 

Sunday was a curious day. Miss Kelly, who was to 
have alternate Sundays off, had this one on, and had 
taken the children out. Catherine caught a lingering, 
backward glance from Spencer as they all went down 
the hall, a silent, wondering stare. He had said nothing 
about Miss Kelly, nothing about the new order of things; 
Catherine felt that he held a sort of baffled judgment in 
reserve. Letty, as always, was cheerfully intent on her own 
small schemes. Marian had confided last night that Miss 
Kelly was nice, but her stories sounded all the same, not 
like Muvver’s, Next Sunday, thought Catherine, I’ll 



BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


97 

have them. It’s absurd to feel pleased that Spencer 
doesn’t adjust himself at once. I want him happy. 

She sat at the breakfast table, too listless to bestir her¬ 
self about the endless things that waited for her. The 
morning sun was sharp and hard on the stretch of city 
beneath the window, picking out slate roofs and chimneys. 
Alone in the empty apartment, its silence enclosed and 
emphasized by the constant sounds outside—the click 
of the elevator, the staccato of voices in the well of the 
court, the rumble of a car climbing the Amsterdam hill— 
Catherine relaxed into complete lethargy, her hands idle 
in her lap. 

The week had been drawn too taut. Surely coming 
weeks would be less difficult, once she had herself and 
the rest of the family broken into the new harness. She 
wished that Charles were sitting across from her, the 
Sunday paper littering the floor about his feet. She 
would say, “One week is over.” And he—what would 
he say? “How do you like it, old dear?” And she, “You 
know, I think I am making a go of it.” Then if he said, 
“Of course! I knew you would,” then she could hug his 
shoulder in passing, and go quite peacefully about the 1 
tasks that waited. She sighed. If I have to be bolstered 
at every step, I might as well stop, she thought. 

She would like to sit still all day, not even thinking. 
Instead, she pulled herself to her feet and cleared the 
breakfast dishes away methodically. Then she opened 
the bundles of laundry, sorted the clothes and laid them 
away, found fresh linen for the beds, laid aside one sheet 
with a jagged tear to be mended later, investigated Flora’s 
preparations for dinner, and, finally, with a basket of 
mending, sat down at the living-room window. Perhaps 


LABYRINTH 


98 

Flora could see to the laundry, although Catherine always 
had done that; she must plan, in some way, to have Sun¬ 
day reasonably free. Miss Kelly had offered to take 
care of the children’s mending; but—Catherine’s fingers 
pushed out at the heel of the black sock—Charles had to 
be sewn up! 

How still and empty the house lay about her! Per¬ 
haps Charles was even then on his way home—she had 
a swift picture of him at the window of the train, hurling 
toward her. 

Ridiculous to feel so tired. She stretched her arms 
above her head, and then reached for the darning ball. 
Henrietta had said, “Don’t weaken. You’ll find the first 
stages of adjustment the most difficult.” True, all right. 
The texture of her days rose before her, a series of sharp 
images. Morning, an incredible packing of the two 
hours: breakfast, the three children to bathe and help 
dress, Miss Kelly arriving like clockwork to supervise the 
final departure for school, Catherine’s hasty glimpse at 
her face, flushed under the brim of her hat, before she 
hurried out for the elevator. Then the bus ride; herself 
a highly conscious part of the downward flood of workers, 
the fluster of the morning dropping away before the 
steady rise of that inner self, calm, clear, deliberate. The 
office—deference in the manner of the stenographers— 
she was the only woman there with her own office, with 
a man-size job. Occasional prickings of her other life 
through that life—eggs she had forgotten to order. The 
ride home again, the warm cheeks and soft hands of 
the children, and their voices, eager to tell her a thou¬ 
sand things at once. Dinner, and Charles. What about 
Charles? Her fingers paused over the crossing threads 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


99 

of the darn. He had been busy with crowds of new stu¬ 
dents and opening classes. Under that, what? She fum¬ 
bled in her mist of images. She had scarcely seen him, 
except at dinner. Usually he had a string of stories 
about the day. He had gone back to the office two eve¬ 
nings, and to Washington on Friday. She didn't know 
much about his week. Had he withheld it? Had she 
been too engrossed? 

The telephone in the study rang. Catherine hurried. 
Perhaps it was Charles. 

“Is Dr. Hammond in?” 

“This is Mrs. Hammond.” That clear, metallic voice! 
“Dr. Hammond is out of town.” 

“Oh, yes. I thought he might be back. Would you 
give him a message for me? Miss Partridge. Please ask 
him to call me as soon as he comes in.” 

“Certainly.” Catherine waited, but the only sound 
was the click of the telephone, terminating the call. 

“Well!” Catherine sat down at the desk. Now, there’s 
nothing to be irritated about, she told herself. Her eyes 
traveled over the bookshelves, low, crowded, piled with 
monographs and reviews. That curtness is part of her 
pose—manlike. But she certainly hits my negative pole! 

Miss Kelly came in with the children, noisy and hungry, 
and the five had dinner together. Catherine tried to talk 
with Miss Kelly. Her round, light eyes met Catherine’s 
solemnly, and she replied with calm politeness to Cath¬ 
erine’s ventures. 

“No, Marian, dear,” she said suddenly. “One helping 
of chicken is enough for a little girl your age.” 

“Spencer had two!” Marian turned to her mother. 
“Why can’t I?” 


100 


LABYRINTH 


Catherine smiled a little wryly. She thrust under the 
sudden flash of resentment. Of course, Miss Kelly had 
them in charge. What was the matter with her to-day! 
She seemed to react with irritation to everything. 

“Marian’s stomach seemed a little upset yesterday,” 
confided Miss Kelly. 

“We’ll have our salad now.” Catherine dismissed the 
question. 

But after dinner, when Letty had been led protestingly 
away for her nap, and Miss Kelly, armed with a volume 
of Andersen’s “Fairy Tales,” reappeared in the living 
room, Catherine couldn’t resist the swift entreaty of 
Spencer’s eyes. 

“Miss Kelly,” she said, placatingly, “if you would like 
to go home now, I can read to the children. I am quite 
free this afternoon.” 

Miss Kelly agreed placidly. When she had gone, 
Spencer stood a moment beside Catherine, her eyes in¬ 
tent on her face; Catherine saw a wavering tenseness in 
his look. He wanted to hurl himself at her, and he didn’t 
want to. She couldn’t reach out for him, if he felt too 
grown-up for such expression. She smiled at him, and 
with a huge sigh he settled into the wicker chair, one foot 
curled beneath him. 

“She was glad to go home, wasn’t she?” he said. 

“I’m glad she went,” announced Marian. “She 
bosses me.” 

“Good for you,” said Spencer. “Mother, read us 
‘Treasure Island.’ I’m sick of old fairies.” 

Margaret came in, her ring waking Letty. Catherine 
laughed at the unconcealed expectancy with which the 
children welcomed their aunt. 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


IOI 


“You’ve ruined them,” she said, as Marian danced up 
the hall, her eyes wide with anticipation for the packages 
Margaret carried. 

“Well, they are delighted to see their old aunt, any¬ 
way !” Margaret dropped to the floor, scattering the 
bundles, her hands held over them in teasing delay. 

“Your dress, Marg! On the floor in that?” 

“Just a rag. Here, Letitia, your turn first.” 

Catherine went back to her chair to watch the orgy. 
Margaret was extravagant as water. 

“It isn’t really a rag, Aunt Margie, is it?” Spencer 
had his head on one side, deliberating. “It looks like— 
like pigeons.” 

“If I could find a gentleman of your discrimination, 
Spen, I’d grab him in a jiffy!” 

“It is like pigeons, isn’t it, Mother?” Spencer looked 
perplexed. 

“Yes.” Catherine wished Margaret wouldn’t tease 
him. She was lovely, her gray-silver draperies floating 
around her slim, curving figure, the purple glinting 
through. It was like a pigeon’s breast, that dress. 

Letty had a doll, soft and round and almost as large 
as Letty herself. 

“Company for you, when your mother’s off at 
work.” 

Letty’s arms were fast about it, and her deep voice 
intoned a constant, “Pretty doll! pretty doll!” until 
Marian’s present appeared from its wrappings. 

“You stand on it and jump, this way.” Margaret 
was on her feet, her suede toes balancing on the cross¬ 
piece. 

“Letty jump!” 


102 


LABYRINTH 


“Not in here!” Catherine reached for the stick. “You 
idiots! You’ll knock the plaster off.” 

“Letty jump!” Catherine bundled Letty and the doll 
into her lap. 

“Let’s see what Spencer draws.” 

“Spencer was a difficult proposition.” Margaret 
smiled at him. “I thought of a rubber ball, and then I 
remembered he had one. So I got this.” She poked the 
box into his hands. 

“It’s as good as Christmas, isn’t it, Muvver ?” Marian 
was on tiptoe, her Pogo stick clasped to her side, her head 
close to Spencer’s as he tore off the papers. 

“Thought I’d help make him practical, to please the 
King.” 

“What is it?” Spencer knelt beside the box full of 
pieces of steel. 

“You stick them together, and make skyscrapers and 
bridges and water towers and elevators. The clerk said 
you could build a city.” 

“Let me help, Spencer?” Marian flung herself on the 
floor beside Spencer. 

“Me help!” Letty squirmed down from Catherine’s 
lap. 

“You might take the things into the dining room,” sug¬ 
gested Catherine. 

Spencer gathered up the box. 

“I’m much obliged, Aunt Margie,” he said, and Marian 
and Letty echoed him as they followed into the next room. 

Margaret settled herself in a chair at the window. 

“I thought your nurse would be in charge.” Her eyes 
wandered out to the distant glint of water. “Thought 
you’d given up the heavy domestic act.” 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


103 

“I sent her home.” Catherine smiled. “Weak minded, 
wasn’t it?” 

Margaret nodded. 

“Certainly. You look fagged. You ought to be out 
horseback riding or something. You know”—she turned, 
her face serious—“if you’re going to do a real job, you 
have to look out. You have to relax sometime.” 

“I have to read the d’rections first, don’t I?” came 
Spencer’s firm tones. “You can sit still and watch.” 

“Now I didn’t budge from my bed until noon,” went 
on Margaret, “and then Amy had breakfast ready for 
me, and then I jumped in a taxi and came up here. I 
have to run along in a minute, high tea down in the Vil¬ 
lage. But you’ve been at work since early dawn, haven’t 
you?” 

“Oh, there were a few things-” 

“Why don’t you find a real housekeeper in Flora’s 
place?” 

“I can’t afford to pay more, yet. And Flora is too 
good to throw out. I can manage.” 

“You know”—Margaret’s eyes were bright with curi¬ 
osity—“I should like to know what started this, your 
leaving your happy home, I mean. I thought you were 
the devoted mother till eternity.” 

“I am,” said Catherine, calmly. Then she leaned for¬ 
ward. “Do you realize that the loneliest person in the 
world is a devoted mother? This summer, Margaret, 
I thought I’d really go crazy. I was so sorry for myself 
it was ludicrous. I’m trying to find out if I am a person, 
with anything to use except a pair of hands—on monot¬ 
onous, silly tasks.” 

“Of course, the trouble is just that. You are a person. 



104 


LABYRINTH 


I’m glad you’ve waked up, Catherine. You know, there 
isn’t a man in the world that I’d give up my job 
for.” 

“I want a man, too.” Catherine’s mouth was stub¬ 
born. “And my children. I want everything. Perhaps 
I want too much.” 

“Oh, children.” Margaret glanced through the wide 
doors. “Maybe I’ll want some, some day. Nice little 
ducks. Now I’ve got Amy—and love enough to keep 
from growing stale. I want you to meet Amy some 
day.” She rose, adjusting the brim of her wide purple 
hat. “Amy’s waiting now. Tell Charles I'm longing 
for a glimpse of him.” She made a humorous little grim¬ 
ace. “Want to see how he likes this new arrangement.” 

Margaret telephoned for a taxi, and then hung over 
the children, offering impossible suggestions, until the hall 
boy announced her cab. 

Marian wanted to go down to the Drive, to jump. 
Catherine waved good-by to Margaret, her other hand 
restrainingly on Marian’s shoulder. 

“Not Sunday afternoon, Marian. There are so many 
people down there, you’d jump right on their toes. You 
watch Spencer.” 

The children played in reasonable quiet. Catherine 
finished her darning, her mind playing with the idea 
of the graphs she was working on. As she rolled up 
the last stocking, she wondered what she used to think 
about, as she sat darning or sewing. Nothing, she de¬ 
cided. Plain nothing. I could let my hands work, and 
my ears listen for the children, and the rest of me just 
stagnate. 

She delayed supper a little, hoping that Charles might 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


105 


come. She wasn’t sure about the Sunday trains. Finally 
she gave the children their supper and put Letty 
to bed. 

Spencer was still engrossed in the construction of a 
building when Bill Gilbert came in. 

“Henrietta isn’t here?” 

“No, but do come in.” Catherine led him into the 
living room. “Is Henry coming?” 

“She had a call, and said she’d stop here on her way 
home.” 

“Charles hasn’t come yet. He’s been in Washington 
since Friday.” 

“Friday? I thought I saw him downtown, with Miss 
Partridge. He probably went later.” 

“He went at one.” 

“This couldn’t have been Charles, then. It was about 
four. I thought their committee had been meeting. 
Hello, Spencer. What you doing?” 

Spencer had come in, his hands full of steel girders. 

“Mr. Bill, you’re a nengineer, aren’t you? Well, could 
you show me about this bridge?” 

More than an hour later, when Henrietta did come, 
Bill was stretched full length, his feet under the dining¬ 
room table, his eyes on the level of the completed bridge, 
a marvelous thing of spans and girders, struts and tie- 
beams. 

“I’m too weary to stay, Cathy.” Henrietta set her case 
on the table; her fair skin looked dusted over with fatigue. 
“Convulsions. One of those mothers who won’t believe 
in diet or doctors for her child. The father sent for me. 
The child is alive in spite of her.” 

“Do sit down and rest, at least.” 


io 6 


LABYRINTH 


“No. I’m too ugly. Do you want to come, Bill, or 
are you staying?” 

Bill pulled himself awkwardly to his feet, one hand 
reaching for his pipe. 

“This piece of work is done,” he said, smiling down 
at Spencer’s engrossed head. “I’ve had a fine evening, 
Catherine.” 

He had. When they had gone, and Catherine was 
supervising the children’s preparations for bed, she still 
had the feeling of the evening; she had pulled her chair 
into the dining room, to watch them; Bill had looked up 
at her at long intervals, with a faint, queer smile in his 
eyes; he had said nothing, except to offer solemn, technical 
advice, simplified to meet Spencer’s eagerness. 

“I’m going to be a nengineer,” said Spencer sleepily, 
as she bent over him. “An’ build things,” 

“I want to be one, too,” called Marian. 

“You can’t! You’re only a girl.” 

“Mr. Bill said I could if I wanted to. He said I could 
be anything.” 

“So you can.” Catherine tucked her in gently. “But 
you have to go to sleep first.” 

At eleven Catherine telephoned to the station, to ask 
about trains from Washington. No express before morn¬ 
ing. Charles wouldn’t take a local; he must have decided 
to take a sleeper. She set the sandwiches she had made 
for him away in the ice chest. No use worrying. She 
had to have some sleep, for to-morrow. Had Bill seen 
him, Friday afternoon? She hated the queer way wait¬ 
ing held you too tight, as if you were hung up by your 
thumbs. Charles might have wired her. But he knew 
she never meant to worry. 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


107 


She was half conscious, all through the night, of the 
emptiness of his bed, opposite hers. Once she woke, 
thinking she heard the door click. She sprang up in bed 
to listen. Nothing but the constant, faint cacophony of 
city sounds. It must be almost morning—that was the 
rattle of ash cans. 

Ill 

Astonishing how much less hurried the morning seemed, 
with no Charles shaving in the bathroom, shouting out 
inquiries about his striped shirt, his bay rum—he had 
a blind spot for the thing he wanted at the moment. We 
need two bathrooms, thought Catherine. Eve spoiled 
Charles. Breakfast, too, was more leisurely; none of the 
last-minute scramble, no sudden longing for crisp bacon, 
after the toast was made and the eggs were boiled. There 
was time, actually, for a manicure. Flora appeared 
promptly at eight, her Monday face lugubrious. 

“Sunday’s fearful exhausting, Mis’ Hammond,” she 
said, as Catherine finished the consultation about dinner. 
“It’s the most exhaustin’est day us working women has, 
I thinks.” 

“And when Mr. Hammond comes, be sure to ask him 
if he wishes breakfast, Flora. He may have had it on 
the train.” 

“Sure, I’ll ask him. You run along and quit your 
worry, Mis’ Hammond.” 

Catherine, hurrying across the Drive for the bus, was 
worried. She felt almost guilty: first, because the morning 
rush had been so lightened; and then, because she was 
going off, downtown, just as if Charles scarcely existed. 
She had laid out fresh clothes for him, on his bed, but 


LABYRINTH 


108 

she knew how he would rush in, full of pleasant impor¬ 
tance from the trip, wanting to shout bits of it to her 
while he splashed and shaved and dressed, wanting her 
to sit down for a late cup of coffee while he talked. If 
only he had come home yesterday! Well, to-night would 
have to serve, although by evening there would be the 
film of the day over that first sharpness of com¬ 
munication. 

At the door of her office she paused, her fingers on 
the key. She must leave, outside the door, this faint 
guilt which tugged at her. She had wasted that hour 
on the bus. The order and quiet within were like a re¬ 
buke. She crossed to the window and raised the heavy 
sash. The cool bright morning air rushed in with a little 
flutter of the papers on the desk. Across the street and 
a story lower, behind great plate-glass windows, she could 
see busy little men hurrying about, lifting the white dust 
covers from piles of dark goods: that was an elaborate 
tailoring establishment, just waking into activity. Her 
desk had a fresh green blotter, a pile of neatly sharpened 
pencils, and her mail—C. S. Hammond. Extraordinary, 
this having things set in order without your own direc¬ 
tion! She might call up the house, to see if Charles had 
come. But surely he would telephone. 

Dr. Roberts came briskly in. She was to have a new 
filing cabinet, he wanted her to meet the stenographer 
she was to share with him; the President of the Bureau 
would be in that morning, and wished to talk with her 
for a few minutes. 

President Waterbury was a large and pompous gentle¬ 
man who used his increasing deafness as a form of 
reproach to his subordinates. Catherine, sitting calmly 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


109 


near his massive mahogany desk, nodded at intervals 
in response to his grave, deliberate remarks. Her work 
during the war had convinced Dr. Roberts of her ability, 
hem, hem, although that had been on a social study, and 
this was, hem, educational. Since Mrs. Lynch, one of 
the founders of the Bureau, was a woman, it was pecu¬ 
liarly fitting to place a competent woman in charge of 
one of their many investigations. Ah, hem. A pleasure 
to welcome her there. Serious concern, this administer¬ 
ing of responsibility. He was dismissing her with an 
elegant gesture of his old white hand, its blue veins so 
abruptly naked between the little tufts of hair. 

Catherine went back to her office. 

“Oh, Mrs. Hammond!” The bobbed-haired office ste¬ 
nographer rose, with a shake of her abbreviated skirt. 
“You were wanted on the wire. Said you were in con¬ 
ference with the President. Here’s the number.” 

“Thank you. No, I don’t need you now.” Catherine 
waited until the door closed. She still hesitated. It must 
be Charles. Better to call him outside, at noon. The 
telephone operator in the main office had a furtive, watch¬ 
ful eye which probably matched her ear! But noon was 
an hour away. 

“Charles? Hello.” 

“That you, Catherine? I’ve been trying to get you for 
a solid hour!” 

“I’m sorry.” Was that girl listening! “When did you 
get in?” 

“Early. Catherine, where have you put my lecture 
notes ? The seminar, you know. That class meets 
to-day. I can’t find a damned shred of them.” 

His voice seemed to stand him at her shoulder, with 


no 


LABYRINTH 


the funny, distracted flush, and rumpled hair of one of 
his fruitless searches. 

“I haven’t seen them this fall.” She was moving 
rapidly about the house, almost in kinsesthetic images. 
Where would she look? “Didn’t you file those in your 
office last spring? With the manuscript of your book?” 

“Um. Perhaps. I’ll look there. Good-by.” 

Catherine hung the instrument slowly in place. Not a 
word of greeting. But he had probably thrown his study 
into bedlam—and his disposition. She smiled, faintly, 
and refusing to admit the little barbed regret, turned to 
her work. 

At noon, in the stuffy telephone booth at the elevator 
entrance of the St. Francis Club she tried to reach him. 
But Miss Kelly said he wasn’t coming in for luncheon, 
and no one answered the call for his office. 

The afternoon closed around her with steady concen¬ 
tration. Dr. Roberts had said that on Friday there would 
be a conference: a head of a normal college and a state 
commissioner of education would be on hand from the 
West. She wanted this preliminary classification ready. 

As she approached the house that evening, she dis¬ 
covered, ironically, that her mind was revolving schemes 
for propitiation. Steak and onions for dinner, and cream 
pie, and tactful inquiries about the trip. 

There was no rush of children at the sound of her key. 
She heard Marian’s voice, and then Charles’s. She hur¬ 
ried down the hall. Letty sat on her father’s knee, a 
crisscross of adhesive plaster on her forehead, from which 
her hair was smoothed wetly back. 

“She would jump on my Pogo stick, Muvver,” pro¬ 
tested Marian, “and I told her not to, and-” 



BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


hi 


Catherine was on her knees beside the chair, and 
Letty’s mouth began to quiver again at a fresh spectator 
of her injury. 

“It isn’t a bad cut,’’ said Charles, distantly. “Fortu¬ 
nately I came in.’’ 

“But where’s Miss Kelly?” 

“She left at six. I supposed you had instructed her to 
stay here until you came.” 

“I told her to run along.” Flora stopped at the door¬ 
way, her red flowers bobbing over the brim of her hat. 
“I says I’d stay. An’ those chillun was all right one 
minute and the next they wasn’t.” 

“Where’s Spencer?” Catherine rose. She had waited 
a long time for a bus, but it was just past six. 

“In the bathroom, washing off the blood,” said Charles, 
severely. “He was wiping Letty’s face when I came in.” 

“She fell on the radiator,” went on Marian, “an’ I told 
her not to-” 

“It’s all right now.” Charles set Letty on her feet, 
and patted her damp head. “But you surely ought to 
insist on that woman’s filling your place, since you aren’t 
here.” 

“I shall.” Catherine’s eyes sought his with a defiant 
entreaty. “It isn’t very serious, after all,” she finished, 
in white quiet. As she went into her room to leave her 
wraps and brush up her hair, she found her hands trem¬ 
bling, and her knees. She sat down at the window for 
a moment. Of course, she thought, they are my responsi¬ 
bility. That’s only just. But he needn’t hurry so to hold 
me up to blame. As if they planned it—a staged rebuke 
for my entrance. Spencer was at the door, his eyes large 
and serious. 



112 


LABYRINTH 


“Hello, son!” Catherine shoved aside the tight bitter¬ 
ness, and smiled. 

“Oh, Moth-er!” He ran across to her, burying his 
head for a brief instant on her shoulder. “I thought 
—I thought she was dead. Only she hollered too 
loud.” 

“I’m sorry, dear.” Catherine hugged him. “But it’s 
all right.” 

“And”—Spencer's lower lip quivered—“Daddy said 
why didn’t I watch her if she didn’t have a mother. She’s 
gjot a mother, and I was just sitting there reading.” 

“Letty’s all right now. Come, we must broil that 
steak! Aren’t you hungry?” 

Dinner was ready, all but the steak. Catherine felt 
that she thrust her hands violently into a patch of nettles 
and yanked them away, as she cajoled her family back 
into calm humor. Charles, carving the steak, suddenly 
lost his air of grave reproach, and began a story about 
a family with two sets of twins that he had seen on the 
train. With a sigh, Catherine relaxed her grip on the 
nettles. She might run into them, later! 

“We looked for you all day yesterday,” she said, 
finally. 

“Several of the men stayed over, and I had a fine 
chance to talk with them. Brown of Cornell, and 
Davitts.” 

“Mr. Bill came in, Daddy, and showed me how to 
build a bridge.” 

“He thought he’d seen you Friday,” said Catherine 
idly, “but I told him you went at one.” 

“Oh, yes.” Charles was casual. “I missed that train. 
So I went around to the clinic.” 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 113 

His voice was too casual! And the swift glance he 
shot at Catherine as she rose. 

IV 

“I’ve got to run over those lecture notes.” Charles 
stretched lazily up from the table. “They need freshening 
a bit.” 

“You found them, then?” Catherine had Letty in her 
arms, soft and sweetly heavy with drowsiness. 

“Yes. I’d forgotten about carrying them over to the 
office.” 

“I was in the sacred sanctum of the President’s office 
when you called.” 

“Oh, that’s all right. I found them in time.” Charles 
strolled out of the room. 

“Daddy!” Spencer followed him. “Couldn’t I show 
you my bridges and things? I can make anything.” 

“Not to-night, Spencer. Daddy’s got to work.” 

Catherine’s query about home work for school relieved 
Spencer’s gloom. While she undressed Letty, smiling at 
the sleepy protests, Spencer and Marian cleared the table. 
When she reappeared they were trying to fold the long 
cloth, one at each end, Marian arguing heatedly about 
the proper method. Charles banged his study door in 
loud remonstrance. Catherine showed them the creases. 
Then they spread their books on the bare table. 

“You sit here with us, Mother,” Spencer begged. “I 
can do my sums much quicker. Marian doesn’t have to 
do home work. She’s just-” 

“I do, too, have to do home work. The teacher said so.” 

“There, you shall, if you like.” Catherine ruffled 
Spencer’s hair. “Try not to disturb Father.” 



LABYRINTH 


114 

She sat there with them for an hour and more. Marian 
snuggled against her, showing her the pictures in her 
“suppulment'ry reading.” Spencer bent over his work 
in a concentration directed toward the impressing of his 
sister, his cheeks growing pink, his hand clutched over 
his pencil. Although she sat so quietly, her outer atten¬ 
tion given to the children, her deeper thoughts went 
scurrying and creeping up to the closed study door, away 
from it. He needn’t have worked to-night. Don’t be 
absurd. If he has a lecture to-morrow—he wants to shut 
himself away. Slowly her thoughts circled, like gulls 
above the water, concealing in their whirls the object 
which drew them. 

“Muvver, does Spencer have to whisper his sums 
aloud?” 

“Perhaps that helps him.” Catherine smiled at 
Spencer’s indignant face. “You may whisper your story, 
if you like.” 

What were they swooping over, those gull-thoughts ? 
Better to scatter them and see. Not that he had missed 
the train; not even that he had not troubled to run in 
for a moment that afternoon; nor that he had chosen to 
see Miss Partridge. That might so easily be explained. 
No. Just that queer, investigating glance, that deliberate 
offhand manner, when he had told her. It set a wall 
between them. 

The telephone rang distantly, behind the closed door. 
The children lifted their heads to listen. A rumble of 
Charles’s voice. Then silence again. 

When Spencer and Marian had laid away their books 
and gone to bed, Catherine returned to her seat at the 
empty table. I want him, she thought. But if I open 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


ii5 

his door and go in, then I become, in some way, a pro¬ 
pitiator. Perhaps I only imagine all this. I am tired. 
She drew the pins from her hair and let the heavy coil 
slip over her shoulder. Elbows on the table, fingers cool 
and firm against her forehead, as if she might press order 
into her thoughts, she waited. 

Suddenly she rose, shaking her hair back from her 
face. That is grotesque, she thought, sitting here, and 
hastily she went through the hall to the study door, fling¬ 
ing it open. 

“Oh, hello.” Charles looked up alertly from his book. 
He, too, had been waiting. “Kids in bed?” 

“Aren’t you through?” Catherine yawned gently, 
drawing her fingers across her lips. “I’m sleepy, and 
lonesome.” 

But under her lightness sounded a plunk, as of a stone 
dropping, a confirmation of a fear, as she saw the wary 
alertness on Charles’s face vanish in quick relief. 

“Just through,” he announced. “Come on in. It’s 
curious, how stale these lectures seem, after a year. Have 
to refurbish them entirely.” He slipped the sheets into 
a manila cover. “That one’s ready, at least.” 

Catherine sat on the corner of his desk, her fingers 
sliding through a strand of her hair. 

“Did you have a good trip?” she asked. Anything, 
to banish this separateness. “I haven’t heard a word 
about it.” 

“You weren’t home. I was bursting with news this 
morning.” 

“Can’t you remember a little of it?” 

“I might try.” Charles leaned back, his thumbs caught 
in his belt. As he talked, Catherine listened for the under- 


n6 


LABYRINTH 


tones, so much more significant than the events. It had 
been a good trip. The men had received him rather flat¬ 
teringly, praised his latest monograph, shown interest in 
the new psychological clinic. He had a comfortable, well- 
nourished look; around his eyes, with the prominent jut¬ 
ting of socket above, the lines were quite smoothed away. 
Catherine looked at him, at the strong, slightly projecting 
chin, at the smooth hard throat above the neat collar. 

“Davitts hinted at an opening in a middle-western 
college,” he said, finally. “Head of the department. I 
told him I was in line for promotion here, if I got this 
next book done this year. He seemed to think he had 
something better up his sleeve.” 

“Away from New York?” 

“Ye-up.” Charles was blandly indifferent. “Nothing 
definite, you know. Just hints.” 

“Would you even consider it?” Catherine’s hands, 
even her hair against her fingers, felt cold. 

“It never does any harm to let people offer you things. 
And I don’t know—” He was drawing idle triangles 
on the manila covers of his lecture. “Sometimes a posi¬ 
tion like that means much more power, prominence, repu¬ 
tation, than anything here could. Would you mind?” 
He was eying her carefully. “Be better for the children.” 
And after a pause. “Or would you have to stay here— 
for your job?” 

“Have you just made this up—for a joke?” Catherine 
slipped to her feet. “Are you just teasing me?” 

“Not a bit. That’s what Davitts said.” 

“Charles!” Her fingers doubled into a fist at the edge 
of the desk. “Don’t lurk around! Let’s talk it out. You 
don’t like it, my working? You”—she stared at him— 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


ii 7 

“y° u don’t mean you'd hunt for a job somewhere, in a 
little town, where I couldn’t work, just to-” 

“Good Lord! Now why go off at that tangent, just 
because I gave you a bit of news. Didn’t I say I wanted 
you to have what you wanted?” 

“But you don’t like it, do you?” 

“Damn it, give me time to get used to it. It’s all fired 
queer to go off without any one caring, and come back 
to a deserted house. I’ll probably get used to it, but give 
me time.” 

“Do you want me to give it up ?” 

“Are you tired of it already?” 

“Do you really care to know how I feel about it?” 
Catherine’s voice was low and tense. “I feel as if I’d 
escaped from solitary confinement. At hard labor, too! 
I feel as if I could hold up my head and breathe. And 
then, underneath, I feel you pulling at me, wresting me 
back. Oh, you say you don’t mind, but-” 

“Catherine, see here.” Charles stood up and leaned 
toward her. “I—I haven’t meant to be a hog. But a 
man has a kind of knock-out, to find he isn’t enough, 
with his home and all. Here, let’s forget it. I’ve had 
a hard week-end, and last week was a fright. That’s 
all.” 

“It’s not that you aren’t enough.” Catherine flung 
herself at that phrase. “You know about that! Any 
more than I’m not enough, for you. There’s more to you 
than love, isn’t there? Why isn’t there more to me? 
If you’d only see-” 

“The only thing that bothers me is the children. Now, 
take Letty-” 

“But I have left them with Flora many times. I’ve 






n8 


LABYRINTH 


had to. And they bump their heads when I’m home. 
That’s not the point. It’s your blaming me.” 

“All right!” Charles threw up his hands in a sweep 
of mocking surrender. “I won’t say a word.” 

“I want you to say it, not hint it.” 

“Anything you like.” His hands closed on her shoul¬ 
ders. “Here, you haven’t kissed me since I came home.” 

There were sudden wild tears under Catherine’s lids, 
and she thought desperately, oh, not that! Not kisses 
as the only way—to touch, to reach each other! 

“Didn’t even kiss me good-by. Nice kind of wife.” 
Charles pushed her chin up with a firm finger. “There 
now-” 

“You didn’t give me a chance.” Catherine was quiet, 
thrusting under her rebellion. Suddenly, through her 
misted lashes, she saw just for a flash, an echo of that 
wary, investigatory glance. She swung out over a great 
abyss. Bill had seen him, with Miss Partridge. Nothing 
to that, surely, except this feeling, which was not jeal¬ 
ousy, but fear of what he was defending himself against. 

“I wanted to find you, but I didn’t like to come up 
to the Bureau,” he was saying. “So I went down to the 
clinic and talked over things with Stella Partridge.” The 
brisk, matter-of-course words drew her back sharply from 
the abyss. “It took the edge off, not finding you here, 
this morning.” He was threading his fingers through 
her hair. 

“You’re spoiled rotten!” Catherine could laugh at 
him now. He meant that for his apology, and she would 
let it lift her out of fear and hurt. 



BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


119 


V 

The week settled into a steady march. Flora had taken 
on the marketing, Miss Kelly had agreed never to leave 
the house until Catherine arrived, Charles was amiably 
preoccupied with the rush of the opening semester. It 
hadn’t been so hard to adjust things, thought Catherine. 
Takes a little planning—I was too impatient. 

Her work at the office was focussed on the Saturday 
conference. She wanted her preliminary analysis in tables 
and graphs clear and adequate enough to present to the 
men; there would be discrepancies between the apparent 
system and the actual practice in the state which the 
commissioner could point out. She hadn’t time to com¬ 
plete the study of the normal schools; they were aston¬ 
ishingly numerous and varied. 

“It’s just hit or miss, this whole educational business,” 
she said to Dr. Roberts, on Friday afternoon, as they 
talked over the material. “No central direction or 
purpose.” 

“Too much imitation and tradition.” Dr. Roberts had 
his pointed beard between the pages of a catalogue. He 
lifted it toward her, his bright blue eyes and sharp nose 
eager on the scent of an idea. “Too little conscious plan. 
People are afraid of thought. Trial-and-error is the 
working basis. But that’s slow, and you have this heavy 
crust of tradition.” 

“I’d like to scrap it all and make a fresh beginning!” 

“There never is such a thing as a fresh beginning. You 
have to work from what exists.” 

Catherine pushed aside a pile of catalogues, her face 
alight with scorn. 


120 


LABYRINTH 


“But why, if it’s stale and wrong? Take these normal 
schools. Young people, girls mostly, go there, because 
they have to have a diploma to teach. What do they 
get? Things out of books. They learn to teach para¬ 
graphs of geography, not to teach children. It would be 
ridiculous, except that it is terrible. Perhaps it’s because 
men run them.” 

“Women”—Dr. Roberts smoothed his beard—“are 
popularly supposed to submit more docilely to tradition.” 

“Supposed by whom?” Catherine’s hand sent a cata¬ 
logue banging to the floor. “That’s been a convenient 

- - 7 

way of holding their wildness under, I think.” She felt 
her mind throw up swift thoughts that burst and scat¬ 
tered like Roman candles. She couldn’t gather the splin¬ 
tering brightness. “We’ve had, as women, too small an 
orbit.” 

The stenographer thrust her bobbed head into the 
door, to say that Dr. Roberts was wanted on the tele¬ 
phone. Should she connect his party here? 

“No, I’ll take him on my own ’phone.” He rose, 
smiling. “We’ll have to thrash this out to-morrow,” he 
said, “or some day. Don’t frighten our committee to¬ 
morrow, though, by announcing that you are wild, will 
you?” 

Catherine, erect in her seat on the bus top, the golden 
October air fresh on her cheeks, went on coruscating. It 
was true, that about women. They felt that children 
were the most important part of life. So they stayed 
with them, cared for them, held under all their own— 
was it wildness?—bending it to food and clothes and 
order—and then? They threw their children out into 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


121 


the nets laid by men, not viciously, not deliberately, but 
with all that pompous weight of tradition. The way 
things should be done, learned, thought. If you could 
scrap it all and begin—where ? With something, a kernel 
of intelligence, what children are, and what you wish them 
to grow into, what will nourish that growth. Charles 
was on that track, with his new clinic, and all his work. 

As she climbed down from the bus and started up the 
hill toward Broadway, her thoughts still sparkled, spread¬ 
ing out in great circles of light about her, vague projects, 
shadowy schemes, beautiful structures of clarity and san¬ 
ity for the world, for the children. 

“What a stride!” 

The circles contracted swiftly, and she turned. 

“Bill! Hello.” She emerged slowly, shreds of the 
dream still shining. They fell into step. 

“How goes it?” His glance veered to her face. “You 
look as if you’d had your salary raised.” 

“Better than that.” Catherine wanted to break into 
his dark, withdrawn glance; she wanted, suddenly, to 
draw him into this glittering mood. “Bill, it’s wonderful. 
I feel my mind budding! It wasn’t dead. Like a seed 
potato—shoots in every direction, out of every wrinkle!” 

“You look it.” Bill nodded. “I saw that you walked 
on air.” 

“I’ve been recasting the universe.” She laughed, as 
they waited a moment for passing traffic. “That’s better 
than building bridges, isn’t it?” 

“It is less confining.” 

They went quickly past the subway kiosk, dodging the 
home-pouring workers, past the peanut stand panting 
warm and odorous at the corner, to the wide hill of steps 


122 


LABYRINTH 


in front of the University library. A flower vender 
thrust his bunches of roses at them. 

“I want some!” Catherine dug into her purse. 

“Aren’t they stale?” Bill watched her fasten the 
creamy, buff-pink buds to her coat. 

“Probably. But they look fresh now.” Catherine 
swung into step again. Queer, how that occasional little 
side glance of Bill’s gave assent to her mood, dipped into 
it, recognized it, without a word. 

“I suppose,” she said, as they rounded the corner of 
Amsterdam, “that I can’t stay on this level. It’s too 
high. But I’ve just reached it to-day. Assurance, and 
a long sight into what I can do.” 

“There's always, unfortunately, another day.” Bill 
frowned slightly. “Another mood. But you seem to 
have hit a fair wind. Henrietta told me that Miss Kelly 
was panning out well.” 

“Yes.” The view ahead, of the dipping, climbing ave¬ 
nue, with its familiar shops, its familiar clatter of the 
cobblestones, was sharp as a background of relief against 
which to-day stood out. “I know what I feel like, Bill. 
If you want to know.” 

“I do. Always.” 

Simple words, but Catherine heard them with faint 
wonder. Bill was never personal. His profile, with its 
long nose and lean cheeks, like a horse, was reassuring. 

“Well, then. Did you ever watch a treadmill? Round 
and round, all your effort taking you nowhere but around ? 
That’s where I’ve been. That’s what I’ve done. The 
same circle, day after day. And now I’m out of it, on 
a long, straight road. Going somewhere!” 

“I hope it’s straight.” They had reached the apartment 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


123 

entrance, and Bill shook his head at Catherine’s sugges¬ 
tion that he come in. 

“No road is really straight. But as long as it goes 
somewhere!” 

Bill looked at her; Catherine thought he started to 
speak, and then refused the words. 

“Spencer is longing for your next call,” she said. 

“I’ll drop in some evening. Henry’s been busy.” 

“Don’t wait for her, then. Just come.” 

At the door Miss Kelly met Catherine. 

“Letty hasn’t seemed quite well,” she said. “I put her 
to bed.” 

“What’s wrong?” Catherine stared at Miss Kelly’s 
bland, pink face. “She isn’t really sick?” 

“It’s hard to tell, with a child.” Miss Kelly followed 
Catherine down the hall. “It may be just indigestion.” 

Letty, her small face flushed and scowling, wrinkled 
her eyes at her mother. 

“Don’t want to go to bed. Want to see my Muwer.” 

“Here I am, Letty.” Catherine touched her cheek, 
felt for her wrist. 

“She has scarcely any temperature,” announced Miss 
Kelly. “Just a degree. But I thought-” 

“Surely, she’s better in bed. Did she have any supper ?” 

“Broth.” 

“Don’t wait, Miss Kelly. I know you wish to go.” 

“Well, since you are here.” 

Catherine removed her coat and hat. The roses dropped 
to the floor. 

“Pretty!” Letty reached for them. 

“I’ll put them in water.” Catherine came back with 
a vase. “Do you feel sick anywhere, chick?” 



124 


LABYRINTH 


“Letty not sick. Get up.” Catherine caught the wig¬ 
gling child, and pulled the blanket into place. 

“You lie still, and mother’ll be back presently. I must 
see to dinner for Daddy.” 

She hurried into the kitchen. Spencer and Marian 
were under the dining-room table, playing menagerie, and 
unable to answer her except in fierce growls. Charles 
hadn’t come in. Probably Letty wasn’t really sick. She 
had little flurries of indisposition; perhaps she had eaten 
something. 

Charles came in, with a jovial bang of the door, and a 
shout, “Ship ahoy! Who’s at the helm?” 

“Don’t tell him, Muwer.” Marian’s head butted the 
tablecloth aside. “Sh!” 

“ ’Lo, Cath!” He swung her up to tiptoe in his 
exuberant hug. “Where are the kids?” 

“Grrrr!” and “Woof!” The table cloth waggled. 

“Ah, wild animals under foot!” Charles gave an elabo¬ 
rate imitation of a big game hunter, creeping toward the 
table, sighting along his thumbs. “Biff, bang!” He 
reached under, seized a leg, and drew out Marian, gig¬ 
gling and rolling. “Bagged one! Bang, bang! Got the 
panther!” He had Spencer by the collar. “Teddy, the 
great hunter!” He straddled them, his arms folded, 
while they shrieked in delight. 

A wail from the doorway, “Letty play! Shoot Letty!” 

Catherine ran past them, gathering the child into her 
arms. Her hand, closing over the small feet, found them 
dry, hot, and the weight of the child seemed to scorch 
through her blouse against her shoulder. 

“What’s the matter with my baby?” Charles followed 
them. “Let me have her, Catherine.” 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


125 

“She’s supposed to be in bed.” Catherine covered her 
with the blanket. “Now you stay there, young lady! 
Mother will come in soon.” 

She touched the scarlet cheek, her fingers feather soft. 
Letty’s eyelids, heavy and dark, drooped, and her protest 
broke off. 

Catherine drew Charles into the hall. 

“Would you call up Dr. Henrietta? I think her fever 
is coming up.” 

“Is she sick?” Charles looked aggrieved at this intru¬ 
sion upon his mood. 

“I hope not.” Catherine gave him a little push. “Call 
her up, and see when she can come in. I’ll have dinner 
on directly.” 

The wild animals were washed and combed, and din¬ 
ner served when Charles came out of the study. 

“She’s not in. Probably at dinner. I left word with 
the clerk. But I say, Catherine. I got tickets for 
‘Liliom’ to-night.” He looked blankly disappointed. 
“You said you wanted to see it, and I was downtown. 
Good seats, too.” 

“Oh, Charles!” 

“And I even called up that girl we had last year, to 
stay with the children. That graduate student, you 
know.” 

“Well.” Catherine lifted her hands in a little gesture 
of resignation. “If Letty’s sick— But ‘Liliom’! I do 
want to go.” 

“Maybe she’ll be all right when she’s asleep.” 

But she wasn’t. Eight o’clock came, with Charles 
fidgeting like a lamprey eel on a hook, and no word from 
Henrietta. Letty was asleep, her hands twitching rest- 


126 LABYRINTH 

lessly. Catherine shook her head, as she read the 
thermometer. 

“I can’t go, Charles. Almost a hundred and one.” 

“What ails her? Has that woman you’ve got been 
feeding her pickles?” 

The door bell rang. Charles, with a mutter of “Dr. 
Henry, perhaps,” rushed to the door. He came back. 

“It’s Miss Brown, come to stay the evening. What 
shall I tell her?” 

“Tell her I can’t go.” Catherine was abrupt. She 
was disappointed and she was fighting off a sturdily 
growing fear about the next day,—and she resented 
Charles’s air of injury. 

“I hate to, after I begged her to come in.” 

Catherine brushed hastily past him and went to the 
door. Miss Brown, a plump, pale, garrulous woman of 
middle age, a southerner, waited. 

“Letty, the baby, isn’t very well,” explained Catherine. 
“Nice of you to come in so promptly. Some other night, 
perhaps.” And presently the door could be closed upon 
Miss Brown’s profuseness of pity. 

Charles was glooming about his study. 

“When you leave them all day for your job,” he said, 
“I should think you might-” 

“No, you shouldn’t think!” Catherine laughed at him. 
“You’re as bad as Spencer, little boy!” 

The bell rang again. 

“That’s Henry!” Catherine hurried to the door, and 
opened it to Stella Partridge’s little squirrel smile and 
extended hand. 

“Good evening, Mrs. Hammond. I told Dr. Hammond 
I’d let him have this outline when it was finished.” 



BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


127 

“Won’t you come in, Miss Partridge?” Catherine 
heard Charles coming. He lounged beside her, hands in 
pockets. 

“No, thank you. I just brought this outline, Dr. Ham¬ 
mond.” She handed him the envelope. 

There was a moment of silence, in which Catherine felt 
a tugging at her will, as if Charles tried to bend her 
to some thought of his. She glanced at him, still sulky. 

“I have it,” she said. “Why don’t you take Miss Part¬ 
ridge to your show, Charles? If she would like it. Have 
you seen ‘Liliom,’ Miss Partridge?” 

“Letty is indisposed,” said Charles, “thus interfering, 
after the fashion of children, with her parents’ plans.” 

“Can’t I stay with her?” Miss Partridge opened her 
dark eyes very wide. 

“Mrs. Hammond is punctilious.” 

Catherine withdrew a step. If Charles added another 
word—she could hear the rest of his sentence, about her 
leaving them all day! But he merely added, “Would you 
care to go, Miss Partridge?” 

“Ought you to leave Mrs. Hammond, if the baby is 
ill?” 

“It’s always a relief to be rid of a disappointed man, 
Miss Partridge.” Catherine was thinking: how disdainful 
that cold, hard voice makes her words sound! “Letty 
isn’t seriously ill, but I want the doctor to look at her. I 
shall be happier here.” 

Miss Partridge seated herself in the living room, and 
Catherine, after a glance at Letty, and a moment of search 
for the tie Charles wished, sat down opposite her. She 
was charming to look at, Catherine realized; a soft, fawn 
colored suit, exquisitely tailored over her slender, sloping 


128 


LABYRINTH 


shoulders; a long brown wing across the smart fawn hat, 
a knot of orange at her throat. She drew off her wrinkled 
long gloves, and revealed a heavy topaz on her little finger. 

“Your work, Mrs. Hammond? You are finding it 
interesting?” 

“Very.” Catherine felt as expansive as an exposed 
clam. 

“Mr. Hammond was saying you had some kind of 
educational research in hand.” 

“Yes.” Was that Letty, crying? Charles came in, 
rubbing his sleeve over his hat. 

“I don’t need glad rags, do I, since you aren’t in 
evening dress?” 

“No gladder than those.” Miss Partridge rose. 

Catherine stood at the living-room door, listening for 
the sound of the elevator. Charles came rushing back. 

“You’re sure you’ll be all right?” That was his little 
flicker of contrition. “I don’t like to leave you this 
way, but the tickets might as well be used.” 

“Have a good time.” Catherine kissed him lightly. 

“Wish it was you, going!” He was in fine fettle again, 
offering a small oblation before his departure. 

Letty woke, complaining that she wanted a drink. 
Catherine sat beside her, smoothing the silky fair hair, 
until she slept again. Her forehead didn’t feel so parched. 
But Catherine went to the telephone and called Henrietta. 
Bill answered. 

“Oh, Catherine! Henry got your message. She had 
to stop at the hospital first. She’ll be in. Is Letty really 
sick?” 

“I hope not. But I need Henrietta’s assurance.” 


129 


BOTH ENDS OF. THE CANDLE 

“She’ll be along.” 

Spencer looked up from his books. 

“I think Daddy ought to stay home if you have to,” 
he said, frowning. 

“Daddy isn’t any use if the children are sick,” an¬ 
nounced Marian, with dignity. “Is he, Muvver?” 

“Not as a nurse,” said Catherine. “But he’s a great 
comfort to me, you know.” 

“How?” Spencer was still accusing. 

“Just being.” Catherine smiled at him. Spencer had 
a curious way of reaching out, thrusting fine feelers about 
him, investigating subtleties of relationship. He was 
staring at her intently, as if he pondered her last words. 
Then with a sigh, postponing judgment, he closed his 
book 

“My home work’s all done, and I did it alone, because 
Letty is sick. Is that a comfort to you, Mother?” 

“It is.” Catherine was grave. 

When they had gone to bed, Marian in Catherine’s 
room, so that Letty would not disturb her, Catherine 
moved restlessly about the apartment. She was thinking 
about them, her children. What they needed. More than 
food and shelter, more than physical safety. They needed 
a safety in the feeling around them. A warm, clear sea, 
in which they could float, unaware that the sea existed. 
Tension, ugly monsters, frighten them, disturb them out 
of their own little affairs. Spencer especially, but Marian, 
too. Letty was such a baby, still, but she was growing; 
she was still turned inward. Catherine wandered to 
the door and listened. She was breathing too rapidly. 
If Henry would only come! 

She sat down at the window, staring out at the dull 


130 


LABYRINTH 


yellow glow which held the city as a mass and dimmed 
the stars. You can’t pretend for them, she thought. They 
catch the reality under the surface. But that perfect 
safety of feeling—who has it! She felt herself opposed 
to Charles, struggling with him, toward that intense calm 
that might hold the children free and unaware. Perhaps 
some women could attain that—she was abject, despair¬ 
ing—women who could lose their own struggling selves. 
But what then? The children grew up, and made their 
own circles, never reaching anything but this going-on. 
Surely somewhere, along the way, there should be some¬ 
thing beside immolation for the future, otherwise why the 
future? Marian, Letty—I can’t do it, she thought. 
Drown myself to make that quiet, white peace. I won’t 
drown. I keep bobbing up, trying to be rescued. Some¬ 
thing in me, shrieking. If I can rescue that shrieking 
something, and silence it, then surely there’s more in me, 
more poise, more love, to wrap them—no, not wrap them, 
to float them in. If Charles will help! 

She had a sharp vision of Charles and Stella Partridge, 
sitting side by side in the darkened theater, their eyes 
focussed on the brilliant fantasy of the stage. Charles 
had been delighted to go. He didn’t have play enough, 
these last years. I wish I were beside him,—her hand 
reached out emptily, as if to grasp his. Good for him, 
seeing other people, other women. They stimulate him, 
even if I don’t like them. She caught, like a reflection 
in a mirror, the tone of that short walk from the bus 
with Bill. Something exciting about that—an encounter 
with another person. 

A ring of the bell; Dr. Henrietta at last. 

Catherine stood behind her, as she examined Letty, 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


131 

drowsily fretful at the disturbance. What strong, white, 
competent fingers Henry had! They went into the living 
room. 

“She’s not very sick.” Henrietta sank into a chair and 
snapped open her cigarette case. “I’m not sure—tell 
better to-morrow. I’ll come in early. You better keep 
the other children away from her. It might be some¬ 
thing contagious.” 

“She’s had measles.” Catherine was openly dismayed, 
as the bugbear of contagion rose. “Good land, if she 
has, it means they all get it, just like a row of dominoes. 
Henry! What shall I do?” 

“Oh, get a nurse and quarantine them. You don’t 
need to stay in. Charles doesn’t.” 

“I couldn’t.” 

“Well, wait until to-morrow. May be just indigestion. 
I’ve given her a dose for that.” Dr. Henrietta stretched 
in her chair, crossing her ankles, slim and neat in heavy 
black silk above small, dull pumps. “We don’t want your 
career busted up yet. How’s it going? And where’s 
friend husband?” 

“I sent him off to the theater with Miss Partridge.” 
Catherine grinned. “He had the tickets, and was sure- 
I needn’t stay with Letty.” 

“I never yet saw a man who was worried about his 
child when he had something he wanted to do.” Henry 
puffed busily. “They regard children as pleasant little 
amusements, but put them away if they bother.” 

“Charles isn’t quite like that-” 

“No defense necessary. I’m just offering an observa¬ 
tion. Sorry I had to be late. I stopped to watch Lasker 
do a Caesarian on a case of mine. Beautiful job. But 



LABYRINTH 


132 

how’s your work? Bill said he ran into you, spoke of 
your looking well.” 

“My job is fine.” Catherine saw, at a great distance, 
the mood in which she had come home. “Henrietta, I 
must go down to-morrow. There’s a conference. I’ve 
been getting ready for it all the week.” 

“Miss Kelly will be here, won’t she?” 

“It’s Saturday. She’ll have to take Spencer and Marian 
—although I suppose Letty has exposed them already.” 

“She may have nothing at all, you know. I’ll come 
in as early as possible. What time is this conference?” 

“Ten.” 

“Urn. I’ll try to make it. I promised to stop in at 
the hospital. Charles can stay, can’t he, if I should be 
detained?” 

“Don’t you let her have anything that will quarantine 
me! If I am thrown out now, I’ll never get back.” 

“All righty.” Henrietta rose, shaking down her skirt. 
“I won’t.” She ground out her cigarette in the ash tray, 
with a shrewd upward glance at Catherine. “You go 
to bed. You look too frayed. This is just a first hurdle, 
you know. I’ll come in before nine to-morrow. But 
you make Charles stay, if I should be later.” 


VI 

Catherine woke into complete alertness. Charles had 
come in. She heard his cautious step in the hall. Letty 
was sleeping easily, her breathing soft and regular again. 
Catherine slipped noiselessly out of the room. 

“Hello!” She brushed into Charles at the door. 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


133 


“Marian’s in my bed,” she whispered. “Have a good 
time?” 

“Oh, fair.” Charles yawned. “How’s Letty?” 

“Asleep. Tell me about it in the morning. We might 
wake her.” 

In the morning Catherine was fagged. All night the 
awareness of Letty had kept her at the thin edge of sleep, 
drawn out by the faintest stirring. The child was sitting 
up in bed, now, clamoring for her doll, her bwekkust, 
and her go-duck; her cheeks were pink, but they seemed 
flower-cool to Catherine’s fingers. 

“Let’s see if you have any speckles, Letty.” She 
peeled the night dress down; one round red spot in the 
shell-hollow of her knee. “Is that a speckle, Letty Ham¬ 
mond, or a mosquito bite!” Letty gurgled deliciously as 
Catherine’s fingers tickled. “Let’s see your throat. No, 
wider? Does it hurt?” 

“Uh huh. Hurt Letty.” Letty’s arms were tight 
around her neck, and she bounced vigorously up and 
down on her pillow. 

“Here, stop it.” Catherine pinioned her firmly. “Where 
does it hurt?” 

“Hurt Letty. Here.” Letty sat down with a plump, 
and pointed at her toe. 

“Well, you don’t look sick, I must say. But that 
spot—” Catherine imprisoned her in the night dress 
again, and tucked her firmly under the blanket. “I’ll bring 
Matilda, and you can put her to bed with you. Dr. 
Henrietta’s coming to see you soon.” 

Marian appeared at the door. 

“Daddy’s asleep and I didn’t know he was in his 


LABYRINTH 


134 

bed.” She giggled. “I most woke him up jumping on 
him.” 

“Hurry and wash, dear. And don’t come in with 
Letty, please.” 

Catherine sighed a little as she hurried to thrust her¬ 
self into the shafts of the morning. 

Letty’s frequent interruptions, and Charles’s reluctance 
to wake; the discovery that there were no oranges; the 
demoniac speed of the clock—it was after eight when 
they sat down to breakfast. Catherine drank her coffee, 
and hurried off to dress. 

Flora came in. Catherine heard her, with relief, offer¬ 
ing to make fresh toast for Charles. Miss Kelly ap¬ 
peared. She was calmly solicitous as Catherine explained 
Dr. Henrietta’s visit. “Of course, I couldn’t go into 
quarantine,” she said, “on account of my mother.” 

“I understand. If you’ll just take the other children 
outdoors for the morning-” 

They had gone. It was nine, and no Dr. Henrietta. 
Catherine fastened a net carefully over her coiled hair, 
brushed her hat, poking at the limp bow of ribbon, and 
then went slowly to the study, where Charles was rum¬ 
maging through a drawer of his desk. 

“You have no classes this morning, have you?” she 
began. 

“No, I haven’t. Do you know where I put that out¬ 
line Miss Partridge left?” 

“Here it is.” Catherine lifted it from beneath the 
evening paper. “Charles, Henry is coming in. She said 
as early as possible. I can’t wait for her. Would you 
mind?” 

“What’s she coming for? Isn’t Letty all right?” 



BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


135 

“I don’t know. She has a red spot. Henry thought 
she might have something—scarlatina-” 

“I thought they’d had ’em all, those red diseases.” 

“Her fever is down. I think she’s not sick. But 
Henrietta wanted to be sure. Would you mind—waiting 
till she comes ?” 

“Stay here this morning?” Charles looked up, an 
abrupt frown between his eyes. “I can’t, Catherine. I 
can’t play baby tender. I’ve got a meeting.” 

“So have I.” Catherine stood immobile in the door¬ 
way. “A very important one. Those men from the West 
are here. At ten. I am to present the work I’ve been 
doing.” 

“Can’t Flora keep an eye on Letty till Henry comes ?” 

“I think one of us ought to be here.” 

“Good Lord, Catherine! I have to meet the com¬ 
mittee on choice of dissertation subjects. Do you want 
me to telephone them that I have to stay home with the 
baby?” 

“You couldn’t stay just an hour?” 

“Be reasonable, Catherine. I can’t make myself 
ridiculous.” 

“No?” Catherine stared at him an instant. Then 
she turned and left him. 

He followed her into the living room, where she stood 
at the window. 

“Call up your mother,” he suggested. “She can prob¬ 
ably drop in.” 

“Why,” said Catherine evenly, “does it make you more 
ridiculous than me? That dissertation committee meets 
a dozen times this fall. Letty is your child, isn’t she? 
Don’t tell me I’m her mother!” 



LABYRINTH 


136 

“I expected something of this sort, when you an¬ 
nounced that you had to have a career.” Charles walked 
briskly in front of her, stern and determined. “We might 
as well fight it out now. Do you want me to take your 
place? You said not. Do be reasonable.” 

“I’m so reasonable it hurts.” Catherine’s laugh was 
brittle. “Go on, to your meeting. I’ll stay, of course.” 

“Well, really, I’m afraid you’ll have to.” Charles 
hesitated, and then added, gruffly, “It’s unfortunate it 
happened just this way.” His gesture washed his hands 
of the affair. 

As he strolled importantly out of the room, Catherine’s 
hand doubled in a cold fist against her mouth. He can’t 
see, she thought. There’s no use talking. 

When he had gone, Catherine hovered a moment at the 
telephone. No use calling her mother; she wouldn’t be 
able to come up from Fiftieth Street in time to do any 
good. She sat down at the desk, her hands spread before 
her, her eyes on her wrist watch. Henrietta might still 
come. The minutes were thick, cold liquid, dripping, 
dripping. Letty’s loud call summoned her, and she hunted 
up the dingy cotton duck, while that slow, cold drip, drip 
continued. Half past nine. The minutes split into sec¬ 
onds, heavy, cold, dripping seconds. Time could drive 
you mad, thought Catherine, while the seconds dripped 
upon her, if you waited for it long enough. 

It was almost ten when she telephoned the Bureau. 

Dr. Roberts’ neat accents vibrated at her ear. 

“I am sorry,” she said, “but I cannot get away. One 
of the children is ill. I’ve been waiting for the doctor. 
You have the final sheets and graphs I made, haven’t 
you? There’s a list of questions and notes in the left 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


137 

drawer of my desk. I regret this. If you wish any 
explanation of the graphs, please call me.” 

He sounded abrupt, irritated, under his perfunctory 
regret. As Catherine hung away her hat and coat, she 
felt a cold, heavy weight back of her eyes, deep in her 
throat. Time had lodged there! I can’t sit down and 
cry, she thought. No wonder he is angry. It’s my busi¬ 
ness to be on hand. She had once, swimming at low 
tide, found herself in a growth of kelp, the strong wet 
masses tangling about her frightened struggles. Charles 
had dragged her out, to clear green water and safety. 
She laughed, and pressed her fist again against her mouth. 
He wouldn’t drag her out of this tangle, not he! 

She sat beside Letty, reading to her, when Dr. Hen¬ 
rietta finally came. 

“Catherine! You stayed!” Her round face set in 
dismay. “I tried once to call you. That baby died, the 
one we delivered last night. I’ve been working there.” 

“I knew you’d come when you could.” Catherine 
pushed her chair away from the bed. Henrietta pulled 
off her coat, pushed up her cuffs from her firm wrists, 
and bent over Letty. 

“She’s all right,” she said, presently. “Just a touch 
of stomach upset last night. That’s good.” 

“Ducky sick.” Letty waved her limp bird at 
Henrietta. 

“Keep him very quiet, then.” Henrietta poked the 
duck down beside Letty, and shook herself briskly into 
her coat. 

Catherine followed her into the hall. 

“I might as well have gone down to the office.” She 


was ironic. 


LABYRINTH 


138 

“Exactly. I'm awfully sorry, Catherine, that I am so 
late. It’s almost noon, isn’t it? I thought I could keep 
life in that little rag.” Her eyes looked hot and tired. 
“But I couldn’t. Just keep Letty from tearing around 
too much to-day. She’ll be sound as a whistle to-morrow 
again.” 

“Well, at least we escaped a plague.” Catherine leaned 
against the wall, inert, dull. 

“Wouldn’t Charles stay?” Henrietta peered at her. 
“Too busy, eh? Well, Monday you’ll be free as air 
again.” 

“I wonder.” 

“Now, Catherine, don’t be so serious. A year from 
now you won’t know you weren’t there!” 

“It’s not just that, Henry. It’s the whole thing.” 
Catherine flung open her hands. “Am I all wrong, to 
try it?” 

“You know what I think. Here, put on your hat and 
come out in the sunshine. Haven’t you some marketing 
to do?” 

“No. Flora does it. But I will go to the corner with 
you.” 

Flora could keep an eye on Letty. Catherine hurried 
for her wraps, and joined Henrietta at the elevator. 

“You’ve had a horrid morning, haven’t you?” she said, 
swinging up from her inner concentration. “The poor 
baby-” 

“If we can pull the mother through. She’s been*scared 
for months. She doesn’t know, yet.” 

They stood at the corner, the clatter of the*street bright 
about them. 

“I’ve another call at Ninetieth. I’ll ride down.” Hen- 



BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 


139 


rietta signaled the car. “Buck up, Cathy. It’s all part 
of life, anyway. Death—” She shrugged. “That’s 
the queer thing.” Her placid mask had slipped a little. 
“Pleasant words to leave with you, eh?” She jeered at 
herself. “So long!” 

As Catherine recrossed the street, she hesitated, glanc¬ 
ing back into the shade behind the iron palings of the 
little park. Was that Charles, just within the gate, and 
that slim, elegant, tan figure beside him ? She turned and 
fled. She wouldn’t see them, not now. Not until she 
had fought through this thicket of resentment. After 
all, she had known, all the time, that what fight there 
was to make she must make unaided. The sun was 
warm and golden, and there came Spencer and Marian, 
shouting out, “Moth-er!” as they chased ahead of Miss 
Kelly. 

“Oh, we had a nice time.” Marian danced at her 
side, clinging to her arm. “Miss Kelly told us a new 
game.” 

How well they looked, and Miss Kelly, trudging to 
catch up with them, was serene and smiling. Letty wasn't 
sick. It was all a part of life. She could manage it, 
everything, someway! 

Miss Kelly, puffing and warm, was delighted with the 
news about Letty. 

“I was trying,” she said, “to figure out some way about 
mother, so I wouldn’t have to desert you.” Catherine’s 
quick smile saw Miss Kelly as a sunlit rock, equable, sus¬ 
taining. 

Flora shooed the children out of the kitchen. She was 
engrossed in the ceremonial preparation of stuffed pep¬ 
pers with Spanish sauce. Catherine, preparing orange 


140 


LABYRINTH 


juice for Letty, was secretly amused at the elaborate 
rites. Not until Flora had closed the oven door on the 
pan did she look up at Catherine. Then- 

“Gen’man called you up, Mis’ Hammond. I plumb 
forgot to tell you. He pestered me ’bout where you was, 
and I told him you was out for the air.” 

“Who?” Catherine poured the clear juice in to a 

tumbler. “Did he-” She turned quickly. “Who 

was it?” 

“Lef’ his number. I put it on the pad.” 

Catherine flew into the study, deaf to Letty’s shrill 
call. It was the Bureau. Her voice, repeating the num¬ 
ber, was imperative. She had forgotten that Dr. Roberts 
might call. The whir of the unanswered instrument 
pounded on her ear drum. After one. The Bureau was 
deserted. What would he think! Why, it looked—she 
pushed the telephone away, dull color sweeping up to 
her hair. It looked as if she had lied. But it had been 
so late when Henrietta had come that any thought of the 
conference had been worn down. She would have to 
explain, Monday, as if she had been caught malingering. 

“Hello.” Charles stood at the door, uncertainty in his 
greeting. “What’s the verdict? Pest house?” 

“No.” Catherine was jamming the whole dreadful 
morning out of sight, stamping on the cover—“Henry 
says it was just indigestion. She’s all right.” 

“Did you get down to your meeting?” 

Catherine shook her head. 

“Now that’s a shame,” Charles advanced tentatively. 
“I hoped Henry would come in time.” 

Easy to say that now, thought Catherine. Then—I 
won’t be ugly. I can’t endure it. 




BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 141 

“I felt an awful brute.” Charles threw his arm over 
her shoulders. “But you saw how it was.” 

“Oh, I saw!” An ironic gleam in Catherine’s eyes. 

“And here Letty didn’t need you, anyway. You might 
even have gone last night.” 

“I must see to her lunch.” Catherine twisted out of 
his arm, adding with a touch of malice—“You know you 
had a good time.” 

“Oh, fair.” Charles was indifferent. “Left me sort 
of done this morning. Miss Partridge wanted me to 
thank you for her pleasant evening.” 

“I thought I saw you at the gate just now,” said 
Catherine. 

“Yes. I just ran into her on my way home.” 

“Don’t look at me that way!” Catherine cried out 
sharply. 

“What way?” Charles expanded his chest, bristling. 

“As if you expected to see me —suspecting you!” 

“Well, good Lord, you sounded as if you thought I’d 
spent the morning with Stel—Miss Partridge.” 

“I hadn’t thought so. Did you?” 

“Of course not.” Charles began, with elaborate pa¬ 
tience. “I told you that dissertation committee—” 
Catherine’s laugh interrupted him, and he stared at her. 
“I don’t know what you’re trying to do,” he said slowly. 
“I’m sick of this guilty feeling that’s fastened on me. 
Last night because I wanted you to go to the theater, 
this morning because I had to go to a legitimate meeting. 
You don’t act natural any more.” 

Catherine went quickly back to him, her finger tips 
resting lightly against his shoulders. 

“And so he deposited the blame where it wouldn’t 


LABYRINTH 


142 

bother him—on her frail shoulders!” Her eyes, mock¬ 
ing, brilliant in her pale face, met his sulky defiance. 
“Philander if you must, but don’t act as if you’d stolen 
the jam!” 

“I’m not philandering.” 

“No, of course he isn’t.” Catherine brushed her 
fingers across his cheek. “Not for an instant. Now 
come, luncheon must be ready.” 

“But I may!” His voice came determinedly after her, 
as she went into Letty’s room, “if I don’t have more at¬ 
tention paid to me at home!” 

VII 

Saturday, Sunday, Monday morning again. Catherine, 
shivering a little in the wind from the gray river, as the 
bus lumbered down the Drive, tried to escape the clutter 
of thoughts left from the week-end. She had borrowed 
twenty-five dollars from Charles that morning, for Miss 
Kelly. She had pretended not to see his eyebrows when 
she laid the market bills in front of him. Flora had 
said, when Catherine suggested more discretion in shop¬ 
ping: “Yes’m, I’ll make a ’tempt. But charging things 
in a grocery store jest stimulates my cooking ideas.” 

Perhaps I’ll have to take back the shopping. A gust 
caught her hat, wheeled it half around. And clothes! 
I’ve got to have some. How? I won’t have a cent left 
out of that first check. It’s like an elephant balancing 
on a ball, or a tight-rope walker without his umbrella, this 
whole business. 

Last night, when her mother had come in, and Bill 
and Dr. Henrietta, her mother with several amusing little 


BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE 143 

stories about the friend who had come from Peoria, 
Illinois, to spend the winter with her—too plump to fit 
easily into the kitchenette—Charles, with his affectionate 
raillery of Mrs. Spencer—her mother was fond of 
Charles. But he needn’t have made a jest of Saturday 
morning, and his refusal to give up his job to stay home 
with Letty. “That’s what poor men are coming to, I’m 
afraid,’ her mother had told him. Henrietta had jibed 
openly at him, so openly that only Mrs. Spencer’s gentle 
and fantastic mockery had smoothed his feathers. And 
Bill had said nothing. Catherine drew her collar closely 
about her throat. She had found him looking at her, and 
in his glance almost a challenge, a recall of that brief walk 
on Friday. “I hope it’s straight, your road,” he had 
said then. She shrugged more deeply into her coat. 
Straight! Was it a road? Or merely a blind alley? Or 
a tight-rope, and she had to poise herself and juggle a 
hundred balls as she crossed; the house, the children, the 
bills, Charles, always Charles, and her work. She came 
back to the thought of Dr. Roberts and the explanation 
she must offer. 

Dr. Roberts, however, seemed miraculously to need 
no explanation. He had called to tell her that the com¬ 
mittee was to stay over Monday, and that she could meet 
the two men after all. With sudden release from the 
tension of the past days, Catherine moved freely into 
this other world, and her road seemed again straight. 
She was quietly proud of the conservative response her 
suggestions met; her mind was agile, cool, untroubled. 
There grew up a plan for a first-hand study of several 
of the normal schools. Someone from the Bureau might 
go west. Catherine brushed aside her sudden picture of 


144 


LABYRINTH 


herself, walking among the bricks and stone, the people, 
for which these dust-grimed catalogues stood. 

As she went home that evening, little phrases from 
the day ran like refrains. “A masterly analysis, Mrs. 
Hammond. Your point of view is interesting.” And 
Dr. Roberts, after the men had gone—‘T call this a 
most encouraging meeting, Mrs. Hammond. Sometimes 
the personal equation is, well, let us say, difficult. But 
you have tact.” 

Oh, it’s worth any amount of struggle, she thought. 
Any amount! I’ll walk my tight-rope, even over Niagara. 
And keep my balls all flying in the air! 


PART III 
BLIND ALLEYS 











PART III 


BLIND ALLEYS 

I 

Margaret and Catherine were lunching together in a 
new tea room, a discovery of Margaret’s. The Acadian, 
Acadia being indicated in the potted box at the windows, 
the imitation fir trees on the bare tables, and the Dresden 
shepherdess costume of the waitresses. 

“It’s a relief, after St. Francis every day,” said Cath¬ 
erine. “The soup of the working girl grows monotonous.” 

“Hundreds of places like this.” Margaret beckoned 
to a waitress. “Our coffee, please, and cakes.” The 
shepherdess hurried away. “Isn’t she a scream,” added 
Margaret, “with that sharp, gamin face, and those ear 
muffs, above that dress! Why don’t you hunt up new 
places to eat?” 

Catherine glanced about; sleek furs draped over backs 
of chairs, plump, smug shoulders, careful coiffures, elabo¬ 
rately done faces. 

“The home of the idle rich,” she said. “I can’t afford 
it. I’m not a kept woman. Fifty cents is my limit, ex¬ 
cept when I go with you.” 

“You draw a decent salary.” Margaret pulled the 
collar of her heavy raccoon coat up against a snow-laden 
draft from the opened door. “What do you spend it 
for? You haven’t bought a single dud. Why, you don’t 

147 


LABYRINTH 


148 

slip off your coat because the lining is patched. Does 
Charles make you give him your salary envelope ?” 

Catherine was silent and the shepherdess set the coffee 
service in front of Margaret. 

“Well?” Margaret poured. “I’m curious.” 

“Only a rich man can afford a self-supporting wife,” 
said Catherine lightly. “I was figuring it up last night. 
I’ve got to make at least a hundred a week.” 

“What for?” insisted Margaret. 

“Everything. There’s not a bill that isn’t larger, in 
spite of anything that I can do. Food, laundry, clothes. 
You have no idea how much I was worth! As a labor 
device, I mean.” 

“Um.” Margaret glinted over her mouthful of cake. 
“I always thought the invention of wives was a clever 
stunt.” 

“They can save money, anyway. I tried doing some 
of the things evenings, ironing and mending, but I can’t.” 

“I should hope not!” 

“Well, then, I have to pay for them. Charles can’t. 
It wouldn’t be fair.” 

“You look as if you were doing housework all night, 
anyway.” Margaret’s eyes gleamed with hostility. “Why 
can’t the King take his share? You’re as thin as a bean 
pole.” 

“Wait till you get your own husband, you! Then 
you can talk.” 

“Husband!” Margaret hooted. “Me? I’m fixed for 
life right now.” 

“They have their good points.” Catherine rose, draw¬ 
ing on her gloves. Margaret paid the bill and tipped with 
the nonchalance of an unattached male. 


BLIND ALLEYS 


149 


“That’s all right.” Margaret thrust her hands deep 
into her pockets and followed her sister. She turned her 
nose up to sniff at the sharp wind, eddying fine snow 
flakes down the side street. “I know lots of women who 
prefer to set up an establishment with another woman. 
Then you go fifty-fifty on everything. Work and feeling 
and all the rest, and no King waiting around for his hum¬ 
ble servant.” 

Catherine laughed. 

‘Til try to bring up Spencer to be a help to his wife,” 
she said. 

“Oh, Spencer!” Margaret glowed. “He’s a darling! 
Tell him I’m coming up some day to see him.” 

They walked swiftly down the Avenue; Catherine felt 
drab, almost haggard, worn down, by the side of Mar¬ 
garet’s swinging, bright figure. 

“How’s your job?” she asked. “You haven’t said a 
word about it.” 

“Grand.” Margaret’s smile had reminiscent malice. 
“You know, I’ve persuaded them to order new work 
benches for the main shop. I told you how devilish they 
were? Wrong height? Well, I cornered Hubbard last 
week. It was funny! I told him I’d found a terrible 
leak in his efficiency system. He’s hipped on scientific 
efficiency. I tethered him and led him to a bench.” She 
giggled. “I had him sitting there cutting tin before he 
knew where he was, and I kept him till he had a twinge 
of the awful cramp my girls have had. Result, new 
benches.” 

“You won’t have half so much fun when you accom¬ 
plish everything you want to, will you?” 

“That’s a hundred years from now, with me in the 


LABYRINTH 


150 

cool tombs.” They stepped into the shelter of the elevator 
entrance to the Bureau. “I’m working now on some kind 
of promotion system. Of course, most of the girls are 
morons or straight f.m.’s, but there are a few who are 
better.” 

“What are ‘f.m.’s’?” 

“Feeble-mindeds. Like to do the same thing, simple 
thing, day after day. It takes intelligence to need some¬ 
thing ahead.” She grinned at Catherine. “They make 
excellent wives,” she added. “Now if you didn’t have 
brains, you’d be happy as an oyster in your little nest.” 

The splutter of motors protesting at the cold, the scurry 
of people, heads down into the wind, gray buildings 
pointing rigidly into a gray, low sky—Catherine caught 
all that as background for Margaret, fitting background. 
Margaret was like the city, young, hard, flashing. 

“Of course, f.m.’s make rotten mothers,” she was 
finishing. “In spite of the ease with which, as they say, 
they get into trouble.” 

“You know,” Catherine’s smile echoed the faint malice 
in her sister’s as they stood aside for a puffing, red-nosed 
little man who bustled in for shelter—“I think you take 
your maternal instinct out on your job. Creating-” 

“Maternal instinct! Holy snakes!” Margaret yanked 
her gloves out of her pockets and drew them on in scorn¬ 
ful jerks. “You certainly have a sentimental imagination 
at times.” 

“That’s why you don’t need children,” insisted Cath¬ 
erine. “Just as Henrietta Gilbert takes it out on other 
people’s children.” 

“You make me sick! Drivel!” Margaret glowered, 
gave her soft green hat a quick poke, and stepped out of 



BLIND ALLEYS 151 

the lobby. “Good-by! You’ll lose your job, maunder¬ 
ing so!” 

“Good-by. Nice lunch.” Catherine laughed as she 
hurried for the waiting elevator. 

She stood for a few minutes at the window of her 
office, before she settled down to the afternoon of work. 
There was snow enough in the air to veil the crawl of 
traffic far below, to blur the spires of the Cathedral. The 
clouds hung just above the buildings, heavy with storm. 
She would have to go home on the subway; no fun on 
the bus such an evening. Dim gold patches in distant 
windows—office workers needed light this afternoon. 
Her eyes dropped to the opposite windows. Revolving 
fussily before the great mirrors—how dull and white 
this snow-light made them—was a plump little man; 
the shade cut off his head, but his gestures were eloquent 
of concern about the fit of his shoulders. 

Her window, looking out on the honeycombing of 
many windows, and down on the crawling traffic, and 
off across the piling roofs, had come to be a sort of watch 
tower. For more than two months now, she had looked 
out at the city. She had come to know the city’s hints 
of changing seasons, hints more subtle, far less frank 
than the bold statements of growing things in the country. 
A different color in the air, altering the sky line; a differ¬ 
ent massing of clouds; a new angle for the sun through 
her window in the morning; a gradual stretching of the 
shadows on the roof tops. She stood there, gazing out 
at the terrific, impersonal whirl. If she could see the 
atoms, separately, each would be as fussy, as intimately 
concerned in some detail as little Mr. Plump opposite, 
pulling up his knee to twist at his trouser leg. And yet, 


LABYRINTH 


152 

out of that tiny squirming could grow this enormous, 
intricate whole. 

The stenographer at the door drew her abruptly from 
the window. 

“Oh, yes, Miss Betts. I wanted you to take these 
letters.” She bent swiftly to her work. 

She grimaced wryly as she was jammed and pushed 
through the door into the crowded local. Shoving feet, 
jostling bodies, wrists at the level of her eyes. Hairy 
wrists, chapped thin wrists, fat wrists, grubby, reaching up 
for straps; and the horrid odor of dirty wool, damp from 
the snow. A wrench, a grinding, and the terrific, clat¬ 
tering roar of the homeward propulsion began. She 
longed for the quiet isolation of the hour on top of the 
bus, in which she could swing into fresh adjustment. 
Lucky that heads were smaller than shoulders and set 
in the middle. The figure against her began to squirm, 
and her swift indignant glance found a folded newspaper 
worming up before her eyes. Friday, December 9. She 
stared at the date, its irking association just eluding her. 
The 9th. She set her lips in dismay as she caught her 
dodging thought. That reception, to-night! She had 
meant to buy fresh net for her dress, her one black eve¬ 
ning dress—and Margaret’s appearance had driven it 
out of her head. No room for her abortive shrug. Well, 
probably fresh net would have fooled no one. 

At the sound of her key in the door, Marian rushed 
through the hall. Catherine, shivering a little at the sud¬ 
den warmth after the windy blocks from the subway, 
bent to kiss her. 

“Muvver!” Marian’s eyes were roundly horrified. 


BLIND ALLEYS 


153 


“Spencer’s run away. We can’t find him anywhere!” 
Her voice quavered. “He’s lost himself!” 

“What do you mean!” Catherine thrust her aside and 
ran through the hall. Letty was clattering busily around 
the edge of the living-room rug on her go-duck. “Where’s 
Miss Kelly?” 

“Kelly gone. Spennie gone. Daddy gone.” Chanted 
Letty, urging her steed more violently. 

“Flora!” Catherine went toward the kitchen, to meet 
Flora, her mouth wide and dolorous. 

“He’s done eluded ’em, Mis’ Hammond,” she said. 
“They been hunting hours an’ hours.” 

“What happened?” Catherine was cold in earnest now, 
a gasping cold that settled starkly about her heart. 

“He ain’t come home after school. Miss Kelly, she 
took Marian and went over there, but they wasn’t no one 
lef’ there. Chillun all gone.” 

“Yes, Muvver, we went over three times, Miss Kelly 
and me, and he w r asn’t there, and the janitor said no 
children were there.” 

“But he always comes straight home.” Catherine’s 
hand was at her throat, as if it could melt the constriction 
there. “You didn’t see him, Marian?” 

“No.” Marian flopped her hair wildly. “Miss Kelly 
was waiting for me, and Letty, and we had a walk, and 
he wasn’t here-” 

“Has Mr. Hammond been in?” 

“Yessum, he’s been in, and out, chasing around wild 
like.” 

“He knows, then ?” 

“He come home sort of early,” explained Flora. Cath¬ 
erine shrank from the dramatic intensity of Flora’s words. 



154 LABYRINTH 

“Came home, and foun’ his child wasn’t here. He’s gone 
for the police.” 

The telephone rang, and Catherine hurried herself 
into the study. 

“Yes?” Her voice was faint. “Yes? Who is it?” 

“That you, Catherine?” 

“Have you found him?” she cried. 

“No.” The wire hummed, dragging his voice off to 
remoteness. “Has Miss Kelly come back?” 

“Where have you looked? I’ll go hunt-” 

“You stay there.” Then, suddenly loud, “You might 
call up the hospitals. I’ve notified the police station. 
They are flashing the description all over town.” 

“Where are you now?” begged Catherine, but there 
was only silence, and the terminating click. 

Flora was at her elbow. 

“Ain’t found him?” She clucked her tongue. 

“You better go on home, Flora.” Catherine couldn’t 
look at her. She felt a ghoulish contamination, setting 
her mind afire with horrible pictures. Spencer, run down 
in the snowy street. Spencer—“I must stay here any¬ 
way.” 

Flora wavered. She wanted, Catherine knew, to see 
the end of this melodrama. 

“Your own family will need you'” she urged. “Go on.” 

Then, swiftly, to Marian, “Please keep Letty quiet. 
Mother wants to telephone.” 

She closed the door and pulled the telephone directory 
to the desk. How many hospitals there were! Hun¬ 
dreds—Has a little boy been brought in, injured? He 
is lost. Unless he were terribly hurt, he could have told 
you who he is. Has a little boy been brought in—yes? 



BLIND ALLEYS 


155 

He’s nine—no, not red hair. The wind yelled down the 
well outside the window. Surely he wouldn’t be hurt, 
and not be found. Still and unmoving, in some dark 
street—oh, no! No! She clutched her arm against her 
breast, as her finger ran down the dancing column of 
numbers. Someone at the door. She listened, unable to 
stand up. 

Miss Kelly came in, her face mottled with the cold, 
her hair in draggled wisps on her cheeks. 

“I don’t know where to look next,” she said. “I 
hunted up the addresses of some of the boys he plays 
with, but they are all home, and haven’t seen him since 
school, not one of them.” 

“When did you begin to hunt?” 

“Immediately.” Miss Kelly was dignified, sure of her 
lack of blame. “We waited here for him, just as we 
always do. I thought it was too cold for Marian and 
Letty to wait at the corner.” 

“He—he’s always come straight home, hasn’t he?” 
said Catherine, piteously. 

“Always. That’s why-” she stopped. 

That’s why, that’s why—Catherine’s mind picked up 
the words. That’s why he must be hurt, unconscious 
somewhere, kidnaped—that little Italian boy who was 
found floating in the river—Spencer’s face, white on 
black water—stop it! Not that! 

“Can you stay to see that Letty goes to bed ?” Catherine 
turned to her endless task. “I haven’t called all the hos¬ 
pitals yet.” 

His gray eyes, long, with the wide space between, and 
the small, fine nose; fair boy’s brows; mobile, eager lips. 
If I had been here, she thought, as she waited for the 



LABYRINTH 


156 

curt official voice to answer,—Has a little boy been 
brought in? If I had been here—oh, if—if- 

Finally she sat, staring at the ridiculous gaping mouth¬ 
piece. Where would they take him, if he were—dead. 
Wasn’t there a morgue? The word twisted and plunged 
in her, a slimy thing. She would call the morgue. She 
heard Miss Kelly’s firm voice, “No, you mustn’t bother 
your mother, not now. Come and have your supper, 
Marian.” 

He couldn’t be dead. That warm, hard, slender body— 
how absurd! Morbid. He was somewhere, just around 
the corner. Death, that’s the queer thing. Who had 
said that? Henrietta. She would call her—and ask 
her. 

Before she had given the number, the front door clat¬ 
tered, opened. Catherine pushed herself erect; she was 
stiff, rigid. She found herself in the hall. Charles, 
glowering, and in front of him, propelled 4 by his father’s 
hand on his shoulder, Spencer! She‘couldn’t move, or 
speak. 

“Well, here’s the fine young man,” said Charles. 

Spencer wriggled under his hand. His eyes smoldered 
with resentment, and his mouth was sullen. 

Catherine’s hands yearned toward him. She mustn’t 
frighten him, but just to touch him, to feel him! 

“A great note!” Charles came down the hall, righteous 
anger on his face. “I called up the police and had them 
send out their signals.” 

“Where was he?” Catherine had him now; she lifted 
Charles’s hand away and touched the boy. He was 
trembling—Charles had been rough! 



BLIND ALLEYS 


157 

“I was just playing,” Spencer cried out, gruffly. “I 
didn’t know you’d tell the police.” 

“You’ve been told to come straight home, haven’t you? 
Tell your mother what you told me, sir!” 

“Charles!” Catherine’s flash at him was unpremedi¬ 
tated. “You needn’t bully him!” 

“Tell her!” roared Charles. 

“I just said”—Spencer’s words tumbled out, full of 
impotent fury and indistinct with tears—“I said—I said— 
I didn’t want to come home to that old Kelly. I didn’t 
want-” 

“He said,” remarked Charles coldly, “that he saw no 
use of coming home when his mother wasn’t here.” 

“But where was he?” Catherine had her arm over 
his shoulder, in a protective gesture. “Where did you 
find him?” 

“I heard his voice. As I came along Broadway, past 
that vacant lot. He was down behind the bill boards 
there, with some street gamins, doing the Lord knows 
what.” 

“We just built a fire, Moth-er.” Spencer pressed 
against her. “I didn’t know it was so late. We were 
bandits.” 

“Go on into your room, Spencer. You know you 
should come straight home.” 

“He ought to be punished,” declared Charles, as the 
boy vanished in relieved haste. 

“I judge you have been punishing him.” Catherine 
stood between Charles and Spencer’s closing door. “He 
was trembling, and almost crying, and he never cries.” 

“Did you want me to kiss him when I found him, 
after the way I’ve spent the afternoon?” 



LABYRINTH 


158 

“You want to make him feel as bad as you have!” 
Catherine leaned against the wall. She was exhausted; 
her heart was beating in short, spasmodic jerks, as if 
she had run for miles. 

“I suppose I was mad, clear through.” Charles grinned, 
abashed. Then he stiffened again. “Devilish thing to 
do. I came home after some lecture notes, for a meet¬ 
ing, and I couldn’t even go to the meeting.” 

Miss Kelly came into the hall. She had smoothed her 
hair into its usual neatness, and her face was roundly 
pink again. 

“I am afraid I must go,” she said. Her eyes inspected 
them, gravely. Catherine flushed; Miss Kelly had heard 
them squabbling and she was reproaching Catherine. 

“I’m sorry you’ve been detained. I’ll see that Spencer 
realizes how serious this is,” she said. 

When the door had closed on her sturdy back, Charles 
broke out, “If you’d been here, this wouldn’t have hap¬ 
pened. You heard what he said, didn’t you?” 

“Don’t say that!” Catherine’s exhaustion sent hot 
tears into her eyes. 

But Charles had to unload his overcharged feelings 
somewhere. 

“You might as well face the truth. If you care more 
for a paltry job than for your children—” He shrugged. 
“But you won’t see it. I’ve got to have my dinner. We’ll 
be late to that reception now. If I miss all my appoint¬ 
ments because my wife works, I’ll have a fine reputation.” 

Incredible! Catherine watched him clump down to the 
living room He wanted to hurt her. She pressed her 
fingers, ice-cold, against her eyeballs. She wouldn’t cry. 
He felt that way. Not just because he had been worried 


BLIND ALLEYS 


159 

about Spencer. There was a heavy coil of resentment 
from which those words had leaped. And she had thought, 
for weeks now, that she had learned to balance on her 
tight-rope, and keep the balls smoothly in air. While 
under the surface, this! 

“Can’t we have dinner?” he called to her. “We really 
must hurry a little, Catherine.” 

She set the dinner silently on the table, avoiding the 
defiant glance she knew she would meet. 

“Don’t wait for me.” She paused, a tumbler of milk 
in her hand. “I want to talk to Spencer.” 

Charles pulled out his watch and gazed at it im¬ 
pressively. 

II 

Catherine, sitting on the edge of her bed, drew on one 
silk stocking and gartered it. She lifted her head; when 
she bent over like that, faint nausea, like a green smear, 
rose through her body behind her eyelids. She shouldn’t 
have eaten any dinner. Or was it just Charles, and his 
restrained disapproval—or Spencer. She sighed, think¬ 
ing through her talk with Spencer. With insistent cun¬ 
ning he had offered as excuse, his dislike of Miss Kelly, 
his distaste for the house without Catherine. “I didn’t 
think it was bad,” he said. “I didn’t do anything bad.” 

“Inconsiderate,” suggested Catherine, looking at the 
stubborn head on the pillow. Safe! She couldn’t scold 
him, and yet— “You didn’t think how we would feel.” 

“Oh, I thought,” said Spencer. “I thought you 
wouldn’t know. And my father wasn’t very con-sid-’rate.” 
He thrust his head up indignantly. “He yanked me 
right away, and the fellows all saw him.” 


i6o 


LABYRINTH 


Then Charles had called sharply, “Catherine! Are you 
dressing?” and she had, under pressure, resorted to a 
threat. She was ashamed of it. She drew on the other 
stocking, smoothing it regretfully. She had said, “If 
you won’t promise to come home directly, I shall ask 
Miss Kelly to call for you at school.” 

Charles came in, bay rum and powder wafted with him, 
his face pink and solemn. 

“Oh, I haven’t put in your studs—” She made a 
little rush for his dresser, but he brushed her away. 

“Please don’t bother. You’re not ready yourself.” 

Catherine stifled an hysterical giggle. Emotion in 
these costumes—Charles in barred muslin underwear, 
his calves bulging above his garters, and she in silk 
chemise—was funny! She lifted her black dress from 
its hanger and slipped it over her head. Well, it had 
dignity, of a dowdy sort, if it wasn’t fresh. She stood 
in front of the long mirror, trying to crisp the crumpled 
net of the long draped sleeves. Her fingers caught; she 
had pumiced too hard at the ink on their tips—hollows 
at the base of her throat—try to drink more milk. Her 
skin had pale luster, against the black, but her face lacked 
color. “If this weren’t a faculty party,” she said, lightly, 
“I’d try rouge.” 

“Why doesn’t that girl come?” asked Charles, his voice 
muffled by the elevation of his chin as he struggled with 
his tie. “Time, I should think.” 

“What girl?” Catherine turned from the mirror. 
“Oh—” her shoulders sagged in complete dismay. 

“Miss Brown. You got her, didn’t you?” 

Catherine, a whirl of black net, was at the telephone. 
How could she have forgotten! “No, Morningside!” 


BLIND ALLEYS 


161 


She waited. She had called once, that morning, and Miss 
Brown was out. She had meant—“Is Miss Brown in?” 
Charles was at the door, an image of funereal, handsome 
dignity. Miss Brown was not in. No, the voice had no 
idea when she would be in. 

“Oh, say it!” Catherine’s fingers pushed recklessly 
through her hair. “Say it, Charles!” He swung on his 
heel and disappeared. 

Perhaps her mother—but no one answered that call, 
and Catherine remembered that Friday was the night for 
opera. 

A voice in the hall, although she hadn’t heard the door¬ 
bell. It was Bill. 

“Going out, eh?” 

“Apparently not.” Charles was elaborately, fiendishly 
jovial. “I thought we were, but Catherine neglected to 
provide a chaperone for the children.” 

Catherine pressed her fingers against her warm cheeks. 
Her quick thought was: just Bill’s entrance scatters this 
murky, ridiculous tension. This ought to be a joke, not 
a tragedy. 

“Here, run along, you two.” She lifted her head and 
looked at Bill, smiling at her. “I’ve nothing to do. Let 
me sit here and read.” 

“We can’t impose on you that way—” began 
Charles. 

“Of course we can!” Catherine tinkled, hundreds of 
tiny bells at all her nerve ends. “Of course! Come on, 
Charles.” 

As Charles stamped into his overshoes, Catherine ran 
back to the living room. Bill stood at the table, poking 
among the magazines. 


LABYRINTH 


162 

“Thank Heaven you came just then!” she said, softly. 
“Oh, Bill!” 

“What is this momentous occasion, anyway?” 

“A faculty reception. It’s not that. I’m an erring wife 
and mother.” His glance steadied her, stopped that silly 
tinkling. “Spencer ran away and I forgot to send word 
for Miss Brown to come in, and—” That wordless 
quiet of his enveloped her, like a deep pool in which she 
relaxed, set free from the turmoil of the past hours. 
“If I could stay here with you!” 

“Are you about ready?” Charles asked crisply. 

Had Bill lifted his hand in a heartening gesture, or 
had she imagined it? 

The elevator was slow. Charles laid a vindictive thumb 
on the button; below them the signal snarled. 

“Sam’s probably at the switchboard,” said Catherine, 
coldly. 

“He won’t be, long!” Charles pressed harder. 

Catherine turned away, her fingers busy with the snaps 
of her gloves. The tips were powdery and worn; another 
cleaning would finish this pair. If Charles wanted to be 
childish, venting spite on anything— A clatter and a creak¬ 
ing of cables behind the iron grill. 

“If you prefer to stay with Bill, why come?” 

Catherine’s jerk rent the soft kid. The snap dangled 
by a shred. The door .slammed open and they stepped 
into the car. 

Sam*was explaining to Charles. In the narrow corner 
mirror Catherine could see the line of Charles’s cheek 
bone, the corner of his mouth. Poor man! He was in 
a humor. Well, he could stay there! She wouldn’t cajole 
him out of it; he could wait till she did! It was always 


BLIND ALLEYS 


163 

she who had to make the overture. Charles sat sulkily 
down in the swamp of ill feeling and wouldn’t budge. 

“It’s stopped snowing.” She lifted her face to the 
steel plate of sky overhead. 

“Temporarily.” Charles strode along with great steps. 
“Here, take my arm.” He stopped at the corner. 

“Have to keep my gloves fresh!” Catherine hurried 
across the slippery cobblestones. As they climbed up 
past the dark chapel, she squirmed inside her coat. How 
ridiculous they were, going along in a pet, like children. 
Bill would laugh, if he knew. The long windows of the 
law library dropped their panels of light across the thin 
snow. When we reach the library steps, thought Cath¬ 
erine, I’ll say, let’s be good. Only—why must I always 
be abject, and ingratiating? Again that streak of hard, 
ribald mockery: let him sulk if he likes. I’m tired of 
being humble. Below them the wide sweep of steps, 
the bronze figure aproned with snow; the dignified weight 
of the building rising above them, the recessed lights 
glowing behind the columns. How many times they had 
walked together across these steps! 

“Charles.” She spoke impetuously. “Don’t be cross. 
What’s the use?” 

“If you chose to project your own mood upon me—” 
Charles jerked his chin away from the folds of silk 
muffler. 

“Oh, Lord!” sighed Catherine. “Don’t we sound 
married!” 

She could see the building now, with shadowy figures 
moving past the lighted windows. I can’t be humble 
enough in that distance to do any good. What an 
evening! 


LABYRINTH 


164 

It was like a nightmare, through which she moved 
as two people, one a cool, impersonal, outer self, given 
to chatter rather more than usual; the other a mocking, 
irreverent, twisting inner self, mewed up in confusion 
and injury. Empty, meaningless chatter. What fools 
people were, dragging themselves together in an enormous 
room, moving around, busy little infusoria. Charles 
liked it. He felt himself erect and important, with the 
crowding people a tangible evidence of his success, the 
decorum, the polished surfaces clinking out assurance 
that here was his group, here he was admitted, recognized. 
Catherine, bowing, smiling, listening to his voice, offer¬ 
ing bright little conventional remarks, was conscious of 
his feeling. He’s feeding on it, she thought. Growing 
smug. How far away from him I am—far enough to 
see him smug, and hate it. They had drifted away from 
the formal receiving line. She twisted at her glove, to 
hide the torn snap. 

“Well, Mrs. Hammond!” Mr. Thomas was at her 
elbow, his thick glasses catching the light blankly, his 
head enormous above the rather pinched shoulders of 
his dress suit. “This is a pleasure.” He shook her hand 
nervously, oppressed by his social obligation. “A 
pleasure.” 

Mrs. Thomas bustled up, crisp in rose taffeta, a black 
velvet ribbon around her pinkish, wrinkled throat. 

“So long since we’ve seen you. We were just saying 
we must have you out for Sunday night supper. Walter 
does miss Spencer so much.” 

“That would be fine!” declared Charles, heartily. “I 
haven’t forgotten that cake.” 

“We heard such a funny thing.” Were the lines in her 


BLIND ALLEYS 


165 

pink cheeks dented in malice ? She bobbed her curly gray 
head sidewise at Charles. “Someone told Mr. Thomas 
that your wife had left you, Mr. Hammond.” 

Catherine saw the ominous twitching under Charles’s 
eyes, but Mr. Thomas put in, hastily. 

“I think it was intended for a jest, you know.” He 
turned to Catherine, his large, gentle mouth agitated, 
as if in distress at his wife’s poor taste. “I met Dr. 
Roberts last week. I know him quite well, you know. 
He was speaking about your work, Mrs. Hammond. He 
was extraordinarily enthusiastic.” 

Catherine took that gratefully, as something in which 
she was at least not culpable. There was a little eddy of 
people around them, throwing off several to stop for 
casual greetings; when they had gone on, Catherine heard 
Mrs. Thomas’s high voice. “The poor boy! I suppose 
the house seems empty with no mother in it.” Her 
outer self looked across at Charles, calm enough, but her 
inner self had an instant of rage, a hurling, devastating 
instant. 

“Mr. Hammond was just telling me about Spencer’s 
running away.” Mrs. Thomas had a peculiarly self- 
righteous air in her pursed lips and bright eyes. “How 
worried you must have been!” 

“Oh, Mr. Hammond found him so promptly.” 

“But just a minute can seem a long time. I remember 
one day-” 

“Pardon me, please.” Charles moved away, restrained 
eagerness in the forward thrust of his head above his 
broad, black shoulders. 

Catherine saw him edge past a group, saw a pearl- 
smooth shoulder above a jade-green velvet sheath. The 



LABYRINTH 


166 

Partridge, of course! What was she doing at a faculty 
reception? She had a glimpse of the squirrel smile, be¬ 
fore she picked up the thread of Mrs. Thomas’s domestic 
lyric. 

The Thomases wanted refreshments. Catherine’s 
throat was sticky-dry at the thought of food. She had 
a sharp longing for her own living room and Bill. He 
could ease her of these innumerable prickings. She made 
her way to Charles, and then stood, unnoted, at his elbow. 
Miss Partridge saw her, and her hand swam up in a 
leisurely arc. Catherine nodded pleasantly. 

“I think I’ll run along, Charles. You aren’t to hurry.” 
She drifted away before his hesitancy reached action. 

Ill 

Snow again in the air, wet on her cheeks. I am going 
home, to see Bill, in search of ballast. She hurried across 
the campus. The library windows were dark; two clean¬ 
ing women, aprons bundled about their heads, clattered 
ahead of her with their pails. 

As she pushed open the apartment door, she saw Bill, 
standing at the doorway of Marian’s room, indistinct in 
the shadow. He moved violently away. 

“Have the children been bothering you?” Catherine 
listened an instant at the door. Nothing but the faintest 
possible rhythm of breathing. 

“I thought I heard Letty call.” Bill retreated into 
the living room. “Where’s Charles? The party over?” 

“I ran away.” Catherine slipped out of her coat. 
“Leaving him with Miss Partridge.” She drew down 
her long gloves, laughing, and looked at Bill. Some- 


BLIND ALLEYS 167 

thing curiously disturbed in his heavy-lidded glance. How 
tired and gaunt he looked. “What is it, Bill?” 

He waited until she had settled into the wing chair. 

“Nice dress, that,” he said, as he sat down. 

“This?” She smiled at him. Her hands lay idly along 
folds of the black stuff. “Are you bored, sitting here 
alone? The children haven’t really been awake, have 
they ?” 

“No. I eavesdropped on them.” Again that heavy, 
troubled look. “I heard them—breathe.” 

What in that phrase had such poignancy? What in 
the silence swung a light close to the dark, unruffled sur¬ 
face of this man, illuminating, far down in deep water, 
that struggling, twisting something? 

He rose, brushing aside the curtain, to gaze out at the 
dim city. 

“Better run along,” he said, slowly. “You must be 
weary.” 

“Oh, no.” Catherine’s hand entreated him. 

At that he turned slightly, to face her. She had a 
queer fancy that she saw his forehead gleam, his hair 
shine damp, as if he came swinging up, up to the surface. 
But he spoke calmly enough. 

“I’ve been thinking over one of Henrietta’s truisms, 
as I eavesdropped on your children. Wondering about 
it, and you.” 

Catherine was still; breathing might blur the glass, 
this glass through which she might have a clear glimpse 
of Bill. 

“It is this.” His smile, briefly sardonic, mocked at 
himself. “That children are the world’s greatest illusion. 
The largest catch-penny life offers.” 


LABYRINTH 


168 

“Sometimes,” Catherine hesitated, “I think Henry 
says a clever thing to fool herself.” 

“Isn’t it more than clever? Don’t you feel, when you 
are confronted with a black wall of futility, in yourself, 
that at least there are your children, three of them, and 
that they may jack life up to some level of significance, 
and that they are you?” 

“Is that an illusion?” 

“Isn’t it? Our puny little minds, scratching at the 
edges of whatever it is that drives us along, pick up bits 
of sand.” Bill laid his hand on the back of the chair, 
dragged it around, and dropped into it, his gaunt profile 
toward the window, his hands gripped on his knees. 
“After all, a merry-go-round doesn’t go anywhere but 
around. Isn’t that what this feeling amounts to? You 
don’t find yourself convinced that you are the vehicle 
for your parents, do you? And yet”—the words lagged— 
“I am sure I have that illusion as strongly as any fool, 
that I have the need for that consolation.” 

“Surely”—Catherine spoke softly; she mustn’t drive 
him back—“you, of all people, Bill, are least futile.” 

He turned his face toward her, a haggard little grin 
under his somber eyes. 

“What could be more futile? Builder of bridges and 
buildings, which a hundred other men can make better 
than I. I had a maudlin way, when I was younger, of 
expecting that to-morrow would give me the thing I 
wished. To-morrow! Another catch-penny. And this, 
too, puerile as it sounds. For a time Henrietta needed 
me, while she fought to get her toes in. But she’s past 
that now.” 

“Bill”—Catherine strained toward him, her eyes 


BLIND ALLEYS 169 

darkly brilliant—“I came home to-night, because I 
wanted you. Because when I am frantic and silly, you 
can pull me up. You have, countless times.” 

“ That is your generous imagination.” Catherine flung 
out her hand impatiently. “And you see, I have, instead, 
spewed out this sentimental maundering.” 

“Don’t talk that way!” cried Catherine. 

“No.” He rose abruptly, to stand above her, so that 
she tipped her head back, and one hand crept up to press 
against the pulse beating in her throat. His glance 
buffeted hers, entreating something, inarticulate, baffling. 
Then, suddenly, the old quiet mask was on again, and 
the water closed over his plunge within. 

“Don’t ever be frantic, Catherine,” he said. “Good 
night.” 

She sat motionless when he had gone. Bill, in the 
dark, listening to the children. Bill, at the window, send¬ 
ing that heavy stare out into the night. Bill, stripped of 
his concealment. There was a slow brewing of exultation 
within her. He had come out, to her! 

The great illusion. She crept silently to the door where 
Letty and Marian slept. Spencer moaned softly in his 
sleep, and she stood for moments beside his bed. They 
weren’t illusory, except as you tried to substitute them 
for everything. They were part of you, to go on when 
you stopped. But they were separate, individual, cut off, 
themselves. What had Bill said? You don’t feel your¬ 
self the vehicle for your parents, do you? You wanted 
your children, part of you, extenuation for your own 
shortcomings. Wasn’t it an illusion, a flimsy drapery 
of words over a huge, blind, instinctive drive? Bill 
wanted children, then, and Henrietta—crisp, efficient- 



LABYRINTH 


170 

Catherine undressed hastily and crept into bed. Charles 
was late. Resentment, like a small sharp bone, still 
rankled. He’s like a little boy. If I could be patient— 
Bill never takes things out.on Henrietta. She doesn’t 
know his feeling. Perhaps it is always that way; one 
person out of two is not quite happy, never an equal 
balance. Charles was content until I broke loose. Hen¬ 
rietta is content. You have to offer up a human sacrifice. 
She stared at the ceiling, where a broken rectangle of 
saffron light from some court window sprawled. If I 
could think about Charles, without this jangle of feel¬ 
ings, perhaps I could see what to do. Could you ever 
think straight? Did emotion always enter, refract¬ 
ing? 

Charles says he doesn’t mind my working, that he’s 
glad if I like it. That’s what he thinks; no, what he 
thinks he thinks! But underneath, he’s outraged, and 
any tiny thing is a jerk of the thin cover over that feeling. 
Never till this winter has he been so—so touchy. Silly 
little things. Perhaps—she waited an instant—was that 
his key? Perhaps I notice it more, because I want ap¬ 
proval. But he makes a personal grievance if I forget 
his laundry. In a way, it is personal. I forget, because I 
don’t think of him every second. I try to remember 
everything. She twisted over on one side, an arm curled 
under her head. I haven’t asked him to take any share 
of the house job, or the children. She shivered, as if a 
cold draft from that hour before dinner blew across her; 
Spencer, lost, because she wasn’t at home. Charles, inti¬ 
mating that he was justified. But she was at home- 

The door clicked softly open, and cautious feet moved 
down the hall. 



BLIND ALLEYS 


171 

Catherine smiled. Charles was like an elephant when 
he attempted silence. 

“I’m not asleep,” she said, and blinked as he flashed 
on the light. “You must have had a good time, to stay 
so late.” 

“It’s a pity you bothered to go at all,” he said briefly, 
as he vanished behind the closet door. 

Catherine turned away from the light, her hand closing 
into a fist under her cheek. She wouldn’t wrangle, even 
if he was still out of sorts. She heard him padding about 
in stocking feet. He snapped off the light and scuffed 
down the hall. She heard him whistling. He would 
wake the children, if he weren’t more careful. 

He was back again, a stocky figure against the pale, 
square of window as he shoved it open. He was scurrying 
for bed. 

“Charles!” Catherine’s cry leaped out. “Come here!” 

“Well?” He stood above her. “Brr! It’s chilly.” 

She reached up for his hands, dragged him down be¬ 
side her, her arms slipping up to his shoulders, clasping 
behind his neck. He resisted her; she felt stubborn hard¬ 
ness in his muscles. 

“Charles,” she begged, “what’s happening to us! 
Don’t-” 

“I’m ail right,” he said. “I thought you were off 
color.” 

Catherine let her hands drop forlornly away. 

“You’ve been sort of touchy.” He cleared his throat. 
“I’m not perfect. But I hate this feeling—that you’re 
standing off, waiting to be critical of me.” 

“Oh, I’m not!” Catherine sighed. 

“All right, then.” Charles bent down, brushed his lips 



172 


LABYRINTH 


against her cheek, and stood up. “Go to sleep. You’re 
tired, I guess.” 

Catherine lay motionless, listening to the creak of his 
bed, the soft pulling and adjusting of blankets. The 
wind was cold on her eyelids, on the tears that crept 
down. She was humiliated, shamed. She had dropped 
her pride and evoked touch—passion—only to find him— 
her hands flung open, to escape the lingering sensation 
of that obdurate, resisting column of his throat. 

Unbidden, racking, a swift visual image of Stella 
Partridge, smooth ivory and jade. She fled away from 
it. Not that! She wouldn’t add jealousy to her torment. 
But that eager, forward thrust of his head as he made 
his way across the room toward her, and that secret, 
honey-mouthed deference in the casual talk of the woman. 
Oh, no! 

Then, rudely, as if she turned to face some monstrous 
shape that pursued her, she looked at the image. Per¬ 
haps, if Charles was injured, outraged, under his reason¬ 
ing surface, he might turn to Stella. She wanted some¬ 
thing of him, that woman. Perhaps it was love she 
wanted, although the hard metallic gleam under the soft¬ 
ness of her eyes seemed passionless, egocentric. 

“Charles,” she whispered. What else she might have 
said, she didn’t know. But Charles was asleep. 

IV 

The next morning, in the accustomed flurry of baths, 
breakfast, dressing, Catherine jeered at her nightmares 
of the dark. She would not be a fool, at least. The 
children were ecstatic about the snow, which lay in caps 


BLIND ALLEYS 


173 

and mounds and blankets on the roof tops below the 
windows. Marian made snowballs from the window 
ledge, and tried, giggling, to wash her father’s face. 
Charles was jovial, amusing himself with the role of 
good-natured father. Yes, he might go coasting with 
them that afternoon. He’d see if he couldn’t get away 
from the office early. Miss Kelly could telephone him at 
noon. 

Miss Kelly came in; Flora was belated. 

“Probably the trolley cars are stuck,’’ said Spencer, 
full of delight at possible catastrophes the snow might 
bring. 

Catherine left a note for Flora, with the day’s instruc¬ 
tions, and hurried off. She had swung free of the night 
in a long arc of release. 

The Drive had a dramatic beauty; white morning 
sunlight piercing the gaps made by cross streets, long 
blue shadows stretching from the buildings, the river 
gray blue under the clearing sky, the clean, soft lines 
of snow turned back by the plows, snow caught in the 
branches of trees and shrubbery, like strange fruit; gulls 
wheeling like winged bits of snow. By nightfall all the 
beauty might be trampled and turned dingy; now— 
Catherine sat erect, drawing long breaths. 

That noon she would squeeze out a few minutes for 
some Christmas shopping. Saturday wasn’t a good day, 
but if she found a doll for Marian, she could begin to 
dress it. She thrust her foot into the aisle and peered 
down at it. Those shoes wouldn’t last until January. 
Well, she would have her third check on the twenty- 
third, and she had repaid Charles. Funny, how much 
more it cost to dress herself as working woman than 


LABYRINTH 


174 

as mother and wife. Perhaps with the first of the year 
that increase would gain material shape. Dr. Roberts 
had hinted at it again. 

The bus left the Drive and rattled through the city; 
one note everywhere, the squeak of shovels against the 
sidewalks, piles of grime-edged snow, files of carts heaped 
and dripping. 

She shivered, hugging her arms close; the last few 
blocks were always chilly. Wonderful colors in the great 
shop windows, exotic, luxurious, and bevies of shop girls, 
stepping gingerly over dirty puddles in their cheap, high- 
heeled slippers. 

Just a half day of work to-day. She could finish the 
chapter she had been writing. As she waited for the 
elevator, she had a sharp renewal of herself as a part 
of this great, downward flood. The morning ride was a 
symbol, a bridge across which she passed. She nodded 
to the elevator boy; his grin made her part of the intimate 
life of this huge building. You’d expect to shrink, she 
thought, as the elevator shot upwards—swallowed up, and 
instead you swell, as if you swallowed it all yourself. 

Dr. Roberts hadn’t come in. Dropping into her work 
was like entering a quiet, clean place of solitude. She 
reread the pages she had written, the beginning of her 
full report, and then wrote slowly, finding pleasure in 
the search for a phrase which should be clear glass through 
which the idea, the hard, definite fact, might be visible. 
The jangle of the telephone bell broke into a sentence. 

It was Miss Kelly. Flora hadn’t shown up. What 
did Mrs. Hammond wish done about luncheon? 

“Hasn’t she sent any word?” The picture of her 
kitchen, empty, and confused, rose threateningly in the 


BLIND ALLEYS 


175 

quiet office. “Well, you can find something for the 
children. I’ll be home early.” 

If something was wrong with Flora! Catherine pushed 
away the image of disaster, finished her sentence, and 
glanced at her watch. Almost one. Lucky it was Satur¬ 
day. She would have time—vaguely—to see to this. 
Better not stop for any shopping. 

When she reached home, the children rushed to the 
door, accoutered in leggings and mufflers for coasting. 

“Mother! Come with us. Daddy’s coming!” Spencer 
and Marian tugged at her arms, and Letty pulled at her 
skirt. 

“I can’t, chickens.” Catherine hugged them, each one. 
She loved the exuberance of their greeting, the sharp de¬ 
light of contrast after the hours away. “Miss Kelly is all 
ready.” She glanced at Miss Kelly’s serene face. “Flora 
hasn’t shown up? Nor sent word? I’ll have to look 
her up. To-morrow perhaps I can go.” 

“I gave the children their lunch,” explained Miss Kelly, 
“but of course I had no time to set the kitchen to rights.” 

She certainly hadn’t. Catherine gave one dismayed 
look at the disorder, and decided to hunt for Flora first. 
She must be sick. 

V 

Catherine tried to pick a firm way through the slush 
of the sidewalk. Flora must live in this block. She 
peered at the numbers over dark doorways, under the 
sagging zigzags of fire escapes. The snow had been 
thrown up in a dirty barricade along the edge of the walk, 
and over the upset garbage and ash cans, down the short 
mounds, shrieked and wailed and coasted innumerable 


176 LABYRINTH 

children. It was like a diminutive and distorted minstrel 
show, thought Catherine, stepping hastily out of the path 
of a small black baby spinning down into the slush on a 
battered tin tray. Snow on the East Side, and on the 
Drive—she had a wry picture of the beauty of the 
morning. 

There. 91-A. She stood at the entrance, with a 
hesitant glance into the dim hall. Absurd to be nervous 
about entering. She had never seen where Flora lived, 
although she had heard the dirge of rising rent and lack 
of repairs which Flora occasionally intoned. She walked 
to the first door and knocked boldly. 

“Who dar?” The voice bellowed through the door. 

“Does Mrs. Flora Lopez live in this house?” Catherine 
had a notion that the dim house gave a flutter of curiosity, 
as if doors moved cautiously ajar. “I’m Mrs. Ham¬ 
mond,” she added sharply to the closed door. “She works 
for me.” 

The door swung open a crack, and a fat dusky face 
appeared, one white eye gleaming. 

“You wants Mis’ Flora Lopez?” 

“Do you know her? Which is her flat?” 

“Sure I knows her.” The round eye held her in hostile 
inspection. “Is you f’om the police station, too?” 

“No. She works for me. Is she sick?” Queer, how 
that sense of listening enmity flowed down the crooked 
stairway. “Which is her flat?” 

“She ain’t sick, exac’ly. Ain’t she come to wuk to¬ 
day?” 

“Who zat, want Flora?” The voice came richly down 
the stairway. 

“Which is her flat?” insisted Catherine. 


BLIND ALLEYS 


177 

The door opened wider, disclosing a ponderous figure 
with great soft hips and bosom, a small child in a torn 
red sweater clinging to her skirts and looking up with 
round frightened eyes. 

“She lives on the top flo’ rear. I donno as she’s 
home.” 

Catherine climbed the stairs. There’s nothing to be 
afraid of, she told herself stubbornly. The sweetish odor 
of leaking gas, the cold, damp smell of broken plaster 
and torn linoleum in the unheated halls choked her as she 
climbed. She was sure doors opened and closed as she 
passed. She felt herself an intruder, with profound 
racial antipathy, fear, stirring within her and around 
her. I won’t go back, she thought. She tried to step 
boldly across the hall, but her rubbers made a muffled, 
sucking note. At last the top floor. She knocked at 
the rear door. No sound; merely the strained sense of 
someone listening. 

“Flora!” she called sharply. “Are you there? It’s 
Mrs. Hammond.” 

Silence. Feet shuffled on bare boards behind that 
door. 

“Flora!” she called again, and the door crept slowly 
open. 

“Why, Flora! What is the matter?” Catherine gazed 
at her. Short hair raying like twisted wires about her 
face, one eye an awful purple-green lump, the wide mouth 
cut and swollen, the broad nostrils distended—a dumb- 
show, a gargoyle of miserable agony. “What has hap¬ 
pened to you?” 

Flora stepped back, pushing ajar a door. 

“Come in, Mis’ Hammond.” Her voice had the ex- 


LABYRINTH 


178 

hausted echo of riotous weeping. “Come in and set 
down. I was goin’ to write you a message.” 

Catherine followed her into the living room, immacu¬ 
late, laboriously furnished. The table, purple plush arm¬ 
chairs—Flora had told her when she ordered those from 
the installment house; lace curtains draped on a view 
of tenements and dangling clothes. 

“What has happened, Flora?” Catherine had lost her 
uneasiness. Flora had a vestige of the familiar, at least; 
her gray bathrobe was an old one Catherine had given 
her. 

Flora sat down in a purple chair and began to rock 
back and forth, moaning. Tears ran down her cheeks, 
gleaming on the bruises. 

At a sound behind the door Catherine turned, to find 
the solemn round eyes of a little boy fixed upon her. He 
scuttled over to Flora, burying his face on her knees. 

“Is he yours?” 

“Yes’m.” Flora cradled one arm about him. “Yes’m. 
He’s my baby.” Her voice rose suddenly into a wail. 
“An’ my li’l girl, where’s she! They took her off to 
shut her up—all ’count of that”—she shook one fist in 
air—“that man!” 

Gradually, in broken and violent bits, Catherine gath¬ 
ered the story. Flora had married her professional gen¬ 
tleman. He hadn’t wanted her to keep the children. They 
were hers, she had worked for them always, and dressed 
them nice, and left them with a neighbor when she went 
off to work. She wanted them to grow up nice. She 
even put little socks on her girl, and the teacher at school 
said why should she dress her up that way, picking on 
her because she was black. She was twelve. Then Flora 


BLIND ALLEYS 


179 

found out her professional gentleman had another wife 
down south. She let him stay, anyway, “so long as we’d 
been married, and he was handsome.” Then she had to 
put him on bail to leave the little girl alone, always fool¬ 
ing with her. “I told her to stay with Mis’ Jones till I 
got home.” And finally—Catherine was cold with pity 
and horror—Flora had discovered that he hadn’t let 
Malviny alone, that he had ruined her, and stolen the 
money she had saved to pay the rent, and was packing his 
suitcase to leave. “I started out to kill him,” she said 
briefly, “but he knocked me down.” Then the police 
had come. 

“They said I let Malviny run the streets. She’s awful 
pretty, Mis’ Hammond, most white, she is. Her pa was 
pale. I was working for her, wasn’t I?” Flora’s gesture 
was wide with despair. “Providin’ for her and him—” 
she rocked the boy against her breast. “I done the best I 
could. She wanted things, and he give her money. She’s 
only twelve.” 

At last Catherine fled down the stairs, feeling that 
perversion and horror and the failure of honest, re¬ 
spectable effort barked at her heels. Flora couldn’t come 
back to her, not at once. She had to testify. She won’t 
ever come back, thought Catherine. She’ll be ashamed, 
because I know all this. She had, when Catherine had 
tried to offer sympathy, shrunk away, into the collapse 
of the structure of herself as competent, self-respecting 
working woman. “I done my bes’!” Her pitiful wail 
dogged Catherine’s feet through the brittle, freezing slush 
of the street. 


i8o 


LABYRINTH 


VI 

Catherine, in an old house dress, waded determinedly 
through the mash of the disordered apartment. Dishes, 
sweeping, dinner—Miss Kelly had straightened the chil¬ 
dren’s rooms. She was too well paid for general utility. 
I suppose I am inefficient, thought Catherine. Just to be 
caught in this mess. But what else can I do? What 
would a man do in my place? She pulled a chair near 
the kitchen table and sat down to the task of shelling lima 
beans, while she speculated as to Charles’s procedure. He 
wouldn’t plunge himself into the mess, at least. He would 
leave it, until someone else stepped in. That’s one trouble 
with women, she decided. They have all these habits of 
responsibility. Now I should be off playing somewhere, 
after this week, and here I am! 

Charles came in with the children. Miss Kelly, dis¬ 
creetly, had left them at the steps. She’s got the right 
idea, thought Catherine grimly. She’s not going to be 
roped in for something she’s not paid for. Letty’s cheeks 
were peonies, her eyes bright stars, and her leggings were 
soaked with melted snow. 

“We had one grand time, didn’t we, chicks!” Charles 
stamped out of his rubbers and shook off his snow-spat¬ 
tered coat. “Had a snow fight and Letty and I beat.” 

“We landed some hum-dingers right in your neck, any¬ 
ways,” said Spencer. 

“Hum-dings in neck!” shrieked Letty. “Hum-gings 
in neck!” 

“You all look as if you’d landed snow everywhere.” 
Catherine shooed Marian and Spencer into their rooms 
in quest of dry clothing, ran back to the kitchen to lower 


BLIND ALLEYS 181 

the gas under the potatoes, and returned to strip Letty of 
her damp outer layers. 

“Even my shirt is wet.” Marian giggled, shaking her 
bloomers until bits of snow flew over the rug. “It was 
awful fun, Muvver. And we coasted belly-bump. Is 
that a nice word to say?” 

“And now we are starved, like any army after a fight,” 
came a sturdy bellow from Charles. 

Bedraggled and glowing, warmly fragrant—Catherine 
laughed at them as she tugged the pink flannel pajamas 
onto Letty’s animated legs. 

“There!” she kissed her, gave the tousled yellow floss 
a swift brush, and carried her into the dining room to 
set her safely behind the bar of her high-chair. “Supper 
and then to bed you go, after this exciting day.” 

“What’s this about the dusky Flora?” Charles came 
into the kitchen. 

“I’ll tell you about it later.” Catherine spoke hastily. 
Tired as she was, their home-coming had given her the 
old sweet rush of pleasure, of safety, of possession. She 
wanted to keep it untouched, free of that horror and 
pity. 

Much later, when the children were in bed, Charles 
strolled into the kitchen and reached for a dish towel. 
Catherine looked up at him as he rubbed a tumbler with 
slow care. 

“Like old times, isn’t it, eh?” He set the glass on the 
shelf. 

Catherine swallowed her sigh. 

“Me wiping dishes, and telling you about what I’ve 
been doing—” Was he deliberately wistful? 


LABYRINTH 


182 

“You needn’t wait for dishes, need you, to talk?” 
Catherine’s smile blunted the slight edge in her words. 

“Somehow, nowadays, there never seems any chance. 
Nights you have to go to sleep, and day times you aren’t 
here.” 

“Last night you went to sleep.” 

“Oh, last night!” Charles with a wave of his towel 
sent last night into the limbo of things best forgotten. 

“Well, tell me. What have you been doing? To-day, 
for instance.” 

“I had two interviews this morning.” Charles paused. 
“With two different publishers’ representatives. They are 
keen about this new book on tests. Ready to make me 
an offer right now, without even seeing an outline. Pretty 
good, eh?” 

“Fine! That’s proof of your standing, isn’t it?” 

“Partly. Partly just the current fad for anything 
psychological, and then the clinic behind the book is a 
factor.” 

“And you have the book—is it half done?” 

“It’s getting along.” Charles had drawn in his lower 
lip and was chewing it thoughtfully. “The clinic is 
furnishing material. I’ve been wondering. Of course 
Miss Partridge did the organizing there, and she’s done 
most of the tabulating of results. She suggested that 
we collaborate on a book. What would you think of such 
a scheme?” 

“I’d think,” cried Catherine in a flash of irritation, 
“that it was pure silk for Miss Partridge! That clinic 
was your scheme, not hers, and-” 

“I haven’t committed myself.” Charles busied him¬ 
self with a pile of dishes on the shelf, rearranging them 



BLIND ALLEYS 


183 

critically. His expansiveness contracted visibly. “You 
needn’t be so sure I’d agree with her. I might give her 
a chapter to do.” 

“Why doesn’t she write her own books?” 

“She isn’t that type, the type that seeks expression, I 
mean. She is the competent, executive type. It seems 
a pity for her not to assemble her results.” 

In silence Catherine hung away the dish-pan and 
scrubbed the sink. Be careful, she warned herself. Don’t 
be cattish; this may be entirely reasonable. 

“I’m sorry you don’t like her.” Charles was solemn. 
“She thinks you are an unusually sweet-” 

“She does! She little knows.” Catherine grasped 
desperately for the fraying thread of control. After all, 
why shouldn’t they write a book together? She turned 
quickly, to find Charles eying her with a cautious, in¬ 
vestigatory stare. 

“You know—” she grinned at him. “I may write a 
book with Dr. Roberts. He was looking over my notes 
yesterday, and he thinks we can find a firm to publish 
the report, as a marketable book. Of course, the Bureau 
puts out a report, too.” 

A thin veil of blankness drew itself over the curiosity 
in Charles’s face. Before he spoke, however, the bell in 
the hall sounded. 

“Company to-night!” Catherine drooped. “I’m worn 
to a frazzle.” 

It was Margaret; her gay, “Hello, King Charles!” 
floated reassuringly to Catherine, dabbing powder 
hastily on her nose, brushing back her hair from her 
forehead. 

“I brought my partner in to meet you two. Amy, 



184 LABYRINTH 

this is the King, and my sister, Catherine—Amy 
Spurgeon/’ 

Margaret, clear, sparkling, watching them with her 
humorous grin, as if she had staged a vaudeville act. 
Amy Spurgeon, slight, dark, her lean, high-cheekboned 
face sallow and taciturn over the collar of her squirrel 
coat, a flange of stiff hair black under the soft brim of 
her gray fur hat. Catherine nibbled at her in swift glances 
as they sat down in the living room. Margaret had 
talked about her. “Amy has to have a passion for some¬ 
thing.” She looked it, with the criss-crosses of fine lines 
at the corners of her black eyes, and the deep straight 
lines from nostrils past her mouth. Militant suffragist, 
pacifist—“She had a passion for the Hindus last winter. 
Now she has one for me. I can’t be a cause, exactly, but 
she finds plenty of causes on the side.” She looks like 
an Indian, decided Catherine, a temperamental, rather 
worn and fiery Indian. 

Margaret and Charles were sparring; they couldn’t 
even telephone each other without crossing points. 

“If they are feeble-minded, why bother with them? 
You can’t change them. Sentimental bosh, this coddling 
of idiots.” 

“But they work better, I tell you! Is that sentimental? 
They make more money for their bosses. That should 
appeal to your male sense of what is sensible.” 

“Even if they didn’t work better”—Amy’s voice shot 
in, a deep throaty tone, flexible with emotion—“Every 
human being has a right to happiness and comfort.” 

“Even human beings with brains have some difficulty 
cashing in on that right,” said Catherine. If Amy and 
Charles started in on society with the vox pupuli stop 


BLIND ALLEYS 


185 

out, they would fight all night! Amy stared at her with 
deliberate inspection. 

Presently Catherine told them about Flora. Flora had, 
since the afternoon, pressed so closely to the surface of 
her thoughts that she was bound to come out. 

“You shouldn’t have gone into a nigger tenement 
alone!” said Charles. 

“Why not?” demanded Amy. “Aren’t negroes people?” 

“I did feel queer, with the house oozing excitement 
along with smells.” Catherine smiled at Charles. “But 
it wasn’t dangerous. Only unpleasant.” 

“Poor Flora.” Margaret was grave. “I didn’t know 
she had any children.” 

“I knew she was always pleased to have clothes given 
her.” Catherine shivered. “The socks were pitiful! A 
symbol of her effort.” 

“Well”—Charles drew at his pipe and paused, impres¬ 
sively—“you can see what happens to a family when the 
mother isn’t at home.” 

“Listen to the King!” Margaret flared indignantly. 
“What about the man ? Living on her, and-” 

“If she’d made him support her, he might have had 
more steadiness.” 

“I suppose”—Amy drawled—“you go on the theory 
that men are so unstable that they can’t stand freedom.” 

Charles had a dangerous little twitch under one eye. 
Catherine flung herself into the whirl of antagonism. 

“Will you tell me, some of you, what I am to do now? 
Flora won’t come back. She’ll be drawn into trials and 
all that for a while, and then she’ll hunt up a new place, 
where no one knows about her. And meantime-” 

“Telephone an agency,” said Amy. 




LABYRINTH 


186 

“I'll send you one of my girls.” Margaret’s glance 
at Charles devilled him. “I have one who can work about 
three months before she has to go to a lying-in hospital, 
and she’s just weak-minded enough to make a good 
domestic.” 

“I can’t,” said Catherine, “haul in a stranger from an 
agency to leave here all day.” 

“Well, then,” Margaret was briskly matter of fact, 
“there’s just one thing to do. Give up this foolish notion 
of a career, and step into Flora’s empty place.” 

Charles made a little leap at that idea, and then sank 
away from it, with a faint suggestion in his mouth of a 
disappointed fish watching a baited hook yanked out of 
reach. 

“Or,” went on Margaret gravely, “Charles can stay at 
home. So much of your work could be done here any¬ 
way, Charles. One eye on the stew and the other on some 
learned tome.” 

“Why not?” Amy’s tense question knocked the droll¬ 
ery out of the picture. “Why wouldn’t that be possible? 
After all, Mrs. Hammond, you have spent years doing 
that very thing.” 

“The King would burn the stew, of course.” Margaret 
rose, sending a light curtsey toward Charles. “Come 
along, Amy. If we’re to walk home. Why don’t you ask 
Sam, if that’s the elevator boy’s name, if he hasn’t a lady 
friend out of work? That’s what we do.” 

When Catherine returned from the door, her eyes 
crinkled at the sight of Charles sunk behind the pages of 
his evening paper. 

“Poor old thing!” she said. “Did they rumple his fur 
the wrong way?” 


BLIND ALLEYS 187 

He crashed the sheets down on his knee, and lifted 
his face, the tips of his ears red. 

“Whatever does Margaret want to lug that thing 
around with her for.” 

“I guess she’s all right.” Catherine was at the win¬ 
dow, looking at the pale glowing bowl of the city sky 
before she drew the shade. “Devoted to Margaret.” 

“Ugh! I’d like that devoted to me!” 

“Don’t worry!” Catherine drew the shade, and turned 
laughing. “She won’t be. She seems violently anti¬ 
man.” 

“Wasn’t she one of the females they had to feed 
through the nose down there at Washington?” 

“That’s rather to her credit, isn’t it?” 

“She’s that fanatic type, all right. All emotion, un¬ 
balanced, no brain. Now Margaret has some intelli¬ 
gence. But she’s being influenced by this woman. I 
can see a difference in her. To think that she chose her¬ 
self to leave your mother for that!” 

“I think few people influence Margaret.” Catherine 
moved quietly about the room, picking up books left by 
Spencer, a toy of Letty’s, Marian’s doll. “She’s hard 
headed, you know.” 

“Well,” said Charles with great finality, “she won’t 
ever capture any man while she has that female attached 
to her. Great mistake for a nice girl like Margaret to 
tie herself up with that woman. She seems the real 
paranoia type.” 

“Now you’ve finished her,” Catherine rumpled his hair 
gently as she passed his chair, “tell me what on earth to 
do. About a maid, I mean.” 

“Don’t know, I’m sure.” Charles frowned briefly and 


188 LABYRINTH 

picked up his paper again. “Advertise, perhaps,” he 
added. 

Catherine's eyes, pondering on the crisp russet crown 
of his head, bent intently over the paper, hardened. He 
didn’t know, and he didn’t mean to concern himself. Her 
problem, not his. It wasn’t his fault if she had no time 
to hunt up a new maid. On the contrary, Flora’s defec¬ 
tion was in a way her fault, a failure of judgment in 
choice. 

“I’m going to bed,” she said. “I’m tired to death.” 

“Right-o,” said Charles. 

Her serge dress lay in a heap across a chair, where she 
had dropped it that afternoon. Careless of her. She 
shook it out, regarding it critically. She should have 
another dress; perhaps a fresh set of vest and cuffs would 
carry this one along for a time. As she hung it away 
she brushed down a coat of Charles. She held it at arm’s 
length, her mouth puckered. She had forgotten to leave 
that suit at the tailor’s that morning, as Charles had 
asked. 

She sat down before the mirror to brush her hair. 
What had he said last night—that she deliberately neg¬ 
lected the little things he asked, that she stood off, being 
critical. Was it true? Her hair drooped in two long 
dark wings over her shoulders as she sat idle, thinking. 
She did feel separate, no longer held in close bondage 
to the irking, petty things, like darned socks or suits that 
must be cleaned, or studs in shirt fronts, or favorite 
desserts. They used to be momentous, those things. It’s 
true! She flung her brush onto the dresser, where it 
slid along, clattering against the tray. Now I do stand 
off, a little disdainful, when he makes a fuss, because I’m 


BLIND ALLEYS 


189 

not a faithful valet. Well! She stood up hastily, braid¬ 
ing her hair with quick fingers. What of it? If I 
spoiled him, all these years, then I must take the conse¬ 
quences. But it’s not—less love, is it? Or did he love 
me more as his body servant? Are men like that? 

She heard Bill’s voice, “Don’t ever be frantic, Cath¬ 
erine.’’ Bill wasn’t like that. She had almost forgotten 
Bill and last night. What a muddle of feeling in yes¬ 
terday and to-day! Bill,—and Charles. Ah, she was 
critical. Charles was right. Critical of the very quality 
she had always seen and loved. His—yes, his childish¬ 
ness. Bill had dignity, maturity, that was it. Even in his 
moment of disclosure. He didn’t take it out on Henrietta. 
Didn’t smear her even faintly with blame. 

She listened an instant as she went down the hall. 
Charles hadn’t moved. In the bathroom she hung away 
the towels and threw discarded small stockings into the 
hamper. Then, with a little rush, grinning at herself, 
she filled the tub. Charles could wait. 

Later, drowsily warm and relaxed, she heard Charles 
tiptoe into the room. She heard his “brr!” at the chill 
wind through the opened window. Still later she felt 
him bending cautiously above her. She heard herself 
breathing slowly, evenly, until his feet scuffed across the 
floor and his bed groaned softly. I can’t wake up, she 
thought,—buried deep under soft, warm sand—heavy— 
even if he—wants me. 

VII 

Sam, the elevator boy, didn’t know a single lady as 
was out of work. Catherine went on down to the base¬ 
ment. Perhaps the janitor would know. He called his 


LABYRINTH 


190 

wife. Catherine, in the door, glimpsed the rooms with 
their short, high windows, full of white iron beds and 
innumerable tidies. Mrs. O Lay filled the door, her bulk 
flowing unrestrictedly above and below her narrow apron 
strings. 

She had a mind to try the job herself. Her daughter 
had come home with a baby, and could mind the telephone 
when Sam was off, and all. Her double chins quivered 
violently at little Mr. O’Lay’s protest. Right in the same 
house, an’ all. “If I try it, he won’t be all the time leav¬ 
ing the fires for me to tend, and I’ll turn an honest penny 
myself.” 

She’s a fat straw to grasp at, thought Catherine. If 
she can get between the stove and the sink- 

“Sure, I been cooking all these years, and himself ain’t 
dead yet. Nor one of the eleven children. It’d be a 
fine change for me.” 

They decided finally that Mrs. O’Lay should come up 
that afternoon to “learn the ropes.” “I'd come up right 
now, but himself asked in his folks for dinner.” 

What luck! Catherine hurried back to her own apart¬ 
ment. Her own rooms look neat, and she is at least a 
pair of hands. 

The children were waiting impetuously for Catherine 
to take them coasting. Marian had suggested Sunday 
School. Miss Kelly thought they should go, she explained. 

“Miss Kelly may take you, then, on her Sunday,” said 
Catherine. “I can’t, to-day. And I’m afraid the snow 
is almost gone.” 

Spencer and Marian, their leggings already on, wiped 
the breakfast dishes, while Letty dragged a battered train 
up and down the hall. 



BLIND ALLEYS 191 

“You come too, Daddy.” Marian tugged at Charles’s 
arm. 

“No. I’m going to have a nice, quiet morning with 
my book.” He stepped hastily out of the path of Letty’s 
assault. 

“I’ve left the potatoes and roast on the shelf.” Cath¬ 
erine looked in at his study door. “Could you think to 
light the oven and stick them in, at twelve, if we aren’t 
back? Mother’s coming in for dinner.” 

“I’ll remember.” Marian giggled at her father’s gri¬ 
mace, and they were off, the four of them. 

On the slope Catherine chose as safe, the snow had 
been worn thin by countless runners. Spencer and 
Marian had one Flyer, and Catherine drew Letty on the 
small sled up and down the walk, to the loud tune of 
“Gid-ap! horsey! Gid-ap!” until she was breathless and 
flushed. Then she coaxed Letty into the construction of 
a snow house, while she sat on the bench beside her. The 
river was gray under a lead sky; the steep shores of New 
Jersey were mottled tawny and white. Spencer and 
Marian puffed up the hill, to sit solemnly beside her, 
their legs dangling. Letty, a small scarlet ball in her knit 
bloomers and sweater, an aureole of yellow fluff about 
her round, pink face, crooned delightedly as she patted 
her lumps of snow. 

“An’, Muvver,” went on Marian, “the little boy made 
his dog drag the sled up the hill, and the doggie cried.” 

“He had snow in his toes,” insisted Spencer. “He 
didn’t cry because he had to drag the sled.” 

“Yes, he did. It was a very heavy sled.” 

Some one stopped at the end of the bench, and Cath¬ 
erine glanced up. 


192 


LABYRINTH 


“Why, Bill!” She moved along, but Marian danced 
up. 

“Oh, Mr. Bill! Come take a belly-bump with us, Mr. 
Bill. Can you go belly-bump?” 

“I think so.” Bill smiled across her head at Catherine. 

“Don’t let her bully you, if you don’t want to.” But 
they were off, Bill flat on the sled, Spencer clinging to his 
shoulders, and Marian sprawled on top of Spencer. 
Letty poked herself erect and opened her mouth for a 
shriek. 

“Here, Letty!” Catherine pulled her, stiff and un¬ 
bending, onto her knee. “If you don’t yell, perhaps Bill 
will take you down. Don’t scare him.” Ridiculous and 
amusing, those flying legs. Like a scooting centipede. 

“You come try it, Catherine.” They had climbed up 
the slope to her again. 

“Take Letty first.” And then Catherine tried it, while 
the children stood in a row, shrieking with delight. “Go 
belly-bump, Muvver!” How Marian loved that word! 
But Catherine insisted on sitting up, while Bill knelt 
behind her to steer. A swift, flying moment, the air 
shrill in her ears, and laughing, they grated to a stand¬ 
still on bare ground at the foot of the hill. 

“If we had a real hill, now.” Bill dragged the sled 
up, one hand firm under Catherine’s arm. “I remem¬ 
ber a hill we used to coast down when I was little. It 
seemed miles long, on the way up, at least.” 

Lucky he came along, thought Catherine, contentedly. 
Or he might have hated to see me, after Friday night. 

“Who is that with the children?” she asked. A figure 
at the crest of the slope, coppery brown fur gleaming in 
the dull light. Miss Partridge! 


BLIND ALLEYS 


193 

“Mr. Bill!” called Marian, as the two plodded nearer. 
“Take Miss Partridge down just once.” 

Catherine felt, indignantly, the flush deepen in her 
cheeks. Why should she mind- 

“Good morning,” she called. “Won’t you try it?” 

“So sorry,” came the neat, clipped accents. “I must 
run along to dinner. It looks like great sport.” Her 
cold brown eyes moved from Catherine to Bill. A flash 
of small teeth. “Great sport. Good-by.” A wave of a 
small, gloved hand, and she was off, swinging smartly 
along. 

“What time is it?” Catherine avoided Bill’s smile. 
“One ! My gracious! Come along, you children.” 

Bill drew Letty up to the street. “Have to walk here. 
Snow’s all gone,” and when Letty sat obdurately on the 
sled, crying “Gid-ap!’’ he swung her up to his shoulder. 
She rode home in state, while Spencer and Marian argued 
about snow in the handball court, about what the carts 
did with the snow that was shoveled away; and Catherine 
walked rather silently at Bill’s side. 

Bill deposited Letty on the steps at the apartment 
entrance, where she amused herself by bouncing her 
stomach against the low railing and gug-gugging at 
Spencer and Marian, who clattered down the area stairs 
with their sleds. 

“I’m glad you were out for a walk this morning.” 
Catherine wanted to break through the thin ice of con¬ 
straint—or was it better to pretend that she did not see 
it? “I was afraid you might stay away from—us,” she 
said quickly. 

“That’s very good of you.” Bill spoke formally, his 
eyes on the children pelting up the steps. 



194 


LABYRINTH 


“Mr. Bill, would you go coasting again?” Spencer 
stuck his elbow up to ward off a snowball from Marian. 
“You stop that, Marian. I’m not playing now. Would 
you?” He frowned at his sister. 

“I’m playing.” Catherine pinioned Marian’s snowy 
mittens in her own hands. “An’ anyway, the snow’ll be 
gone, won’t it, Muvver?’’ 

“It’ll snow again this winter, won’t it?” snorted 
Spencer. 

“When it does, we’ll have a coast,” Bill said gravely. 

For a moment he met Catherine’s glance, and suddenly 
the ice was gone, so suddenly that Catherine almost 
laughed out in delight. “Will you come, too?” he asked. 

“Don’t wait for the next snow.” Catherine gave 
Marian a soft push toward the door. “Run along. Take 
Letty’s hand, please.” Her smile at Bill was grateful; 
having admitted her past his barriers, he was unresentful. 
“Come sooner!” She extended her hand, felt the quick 
pressure of his fingers. 

Like a secret pact—she wondered a little, as she went 
into the hall. Words are clumsy, with Bill, as if he 
dwelt so far beneath ordinary surfaces that words didn’t 
reach him. 

“You like Mr. Bill, too, don’t you, Mother?” Spencer 
pressed against her confidentially as the elevator creaked 
up to their floor. 

“Yes, I do.” 

“He’s a nice man,” Marian agreed. “I’d like to marry 
him.” 

“He’s got a wife, silly,” objected Spencer. “And 
you’re only a little girl and little girls don’t get married.” 

“Pretty soon I can.” Marian turned her back on 


BLIND ALLEYS 


195 

Spencer and darted out of the elevator door, dragging 
Letty briskly after her. 

Spencer’s eyes were wide with disapproval, but Cath¬ 
erine laughed at him, and opened the apartment door. 

Charles sat at his desk. He looked up ruefully. 

“Home again! Say, I forgot all about your potatoes.” 

“Oh, well.” Catherine was undisturbed. “You’ll just 
have to wait longer for your dinner, then.” As she hur¬ 
ried to the kitchen she heard Marian, “An’ Mr. Bill came 
and coasted, and Muvver coasted with him, only not 
belly-bump,” and Charles, “So that’s why you’re so late, 
is it?” 


VIII 

Mrs. Spencer came presently. Catherine rose from the 
oven, blowing wryly on a burnt thumb. 

“Take Gram’s coat and hat, please, Spencer.” She 
kissed her mother’s cool pink cheek. “How well you 
look!” 

“What a pretty chain!” Marian touched the wrought 
silver and dull blue stones. “Isn’t it, Muvver?” 

“Margaret gave it to me yesterday, to match my new 
dress.” Mrs. Spencer crinkled her eyes shrewdly. “Pro¬ 
pitiation. She can’t get over her surprise that I stand 
her absence so well.” 

“I suppose that freak woman put her up to it,” said 
Charles, from the doorway. 

“Um.” Mrs. Spencer tucked her hand under his arm. 
“Changes are good for us. But Margaret must have 
had an ill conscience. She’s overthoughtful.” 

“You see”—Catherine stirred the thickening briskly— 


LABYRINTH 


196 

“you aren’t behaving as a Freudian mother should. You 
are always unexpected.” 

“Freud!” Mrs. Spencer made a grotesque little gri¬ 
mace. “What does he know about mothers! But I did 
think”—she glanced sidewise at Charles—“that Margaret 
might find things less convenient.” 

“She will!” Charles patted her hand. “Don’t you 
worry, Mother Spencer. These violent crazes for—for 
freedom—or people—or causes—wear themselves out.” 

Catherine lifted her head quickly, to find her mother’s 
eyes quizzically upon her. They meant her, too! 

“Want to see my book?” Charles steered Mrs. Spencer 
out of the kitchen. “Catherine’s too busy to talk.” 

Dinner went smoothly; the children told their grand¬ 
mother about coasting, and she asked about school, about 
Miss Kelly. She wanted to take them to the Metropolitan 
that afternoon, to hear a lecture for children. 

“Aren’t there awful jams?” Catherine sighed. Piles 
of mending, her serge dress to freshen,—she couldn’t 
take the afternoon off, too. 

“Not too jammed for pleasure. But you needn’t go.” 
Mrs. Spencer’s eyes narrowed. “I suppose you use your 
Sunday for a scrap-bag of odd jobs, like all other work¬ 
ing women?” 

“I certainly do.” Catherine was abrupt. “But you 
know you prefer the children without me as mentor.” 

She caught a quick exchange of glances between 
Charles and her mother. They’ve been talking about me 
—she simmered with resentment—and Charles has won 
her over to his side, whatever it is. 

She had proof of that later. Mrs. Spencer and the 


BLIND ALLEYS 


197 

children had come home from their sojourn, and after 
they had given Catherine an excited and strange account 
of the habits of a tribe of Indians, Spencer and Marian 
had gone to bed. 

“What did you do this afternoon ?” Mrs. Spencer laid 
aside her magazine as Catherine came wearily back to the 
living room. 

“I showed Mrs. O’Lay where to find the various tools 
for her new job”—Catherine had explained Flora’s ab¬ 
sence earlier—“conducted her initiation ceremony. And 
washed out a collar, and darned.” 

Mrs. Spencer nodded. 

“When you might have been with your children. Are 
you sure, Cathy”—she paused—“sure that you aren’t 
losing the best of your life?” 

“But I’m not!” Catherine sat erect in her chair, her 
cheeks flushed. “On the contrary, I am with the children, 
and love it, and they enjoy me far more than when I was 
their constant bodyguard.” 

“Charles was telling me about Spencer.” Mrs. Spencer 
drew the gray silk of her skirt into tiny folds. “It seemed 
pitiful.” 

Catherine was silent a moment, fighting against the 
swift recurrence of that frightful hour, and against a 
wrathful sense of injustice. 

“Children run away, often,” she said. “I think Spencer 
just happened to catch at that excuse—of my not being 
here.” 

Mrs. Spencer shook her head. 

“Charles seemed to feel-” 

“He told me just how he felt.” Catherine flung up 
her head. 



LABYRINTH 


198 

Mrs. Spencer’s inspection of her daughter was re¬ 
flective. 

“I don’t like to interfere. You know that. But— 
Charles doesn’t seem happy.” 

“He has no right to-” 

“He didn’t say that.” Mrs. Spencer was stern. “I 
gathered it. His work isn’t going very well. He thinks 
you aren’t interested in it.” 

Catherine turned her head quickly. Had she heard the 
door of his study squeak? 

“I am. He knows it. Far more than he cares about 
what I do.” 

“That’s all.”’ Mrs. Spencer rose, preening her skirts 
like a small bird. “I won’t say another word. But think 
it over, Cathy. There’s so much that’s crooked and 
wrenched in the air these days. I don’t want‘you led 
astray by it. I must run along. Alethea will be expect¬ 
ing me.” 

In the turmoil of her feelings, Catherine had a sharp 
sense of the bright, valiant spirit of her mother. She 
didn’t really like to interfere. Charles had coerced her 
into this! Something wistful and picturesque about the 
two elderly women, Mrs. Alethea Bragg and her mother, 
moving serenely about in the great city, nibbling at music, 
at theaters, at Fifth Avenue shops, taking quiet amuse¬ 
ment out of days free from the hectic confusion of trying 
to live. 

“Please don’t be concerned about me, Mother.” She 
threw her arm around the firm, neat shoulders. “I’m 
honestly trying to hunt for a scheme of things that will 
work for everybody. Not just me. Come in oftener. 
The children adore it.” 




BLIND ALLEYS 


199 


IX 

Miss Kelly had brought the children down for a visit 
to the Christmas toy-land in some of the large stores, 
and at noon Catherine met them for luncheon. Letty had 
shared the expedition for the first time, and the kaleido¬ 
scopic displays had goaded her into a frenzy of noisy 
delight. 

“She’s just roared the whole morning, Muvver.” 
Marian was uneasy at the scrutiny of amused neighbors 
in the tea room. But Miss Kelly diverted Letty into 
contemplation of an enormous baked potato. 

“I want you to come with us, Mother.” Spencer 
felt under his chair for his cap; he hadn’t been quite 
sure where he should put that cap. “You always 
did-” 

“You see, I have to stay in the office, except at noon,” 
Catherine explained. She was conscious of admiration 
for the deftness with which Miss Kelly had subdued 
Letty, had arranged the luncheon for the children and 
herself. “I don’t have a vacation until Christmas day. 
Tell me what you saw.” 

A recital in duo. Letty had tried to hug every Santa 
Claus they had seen, even the Salvation Army Santa on 
the corner. Extraordinary and delectable toys. They 
couldn’t decide what they wanted themselves. 

“It is lucky we came down early,” said Miss Kelly. 
“The crowds began to come before we left.” 

“Did you buy your gifts?” 

“I think Spencer bought me one,” cried Marian. “He 
made me turn my back-” 

“You shouldn’t think about that,” said Spencer, ear- 




200 


LABYRINTH 


nestly. “If it’s Christmas, you shouldn’t even think 
you’ve got a present.” 

“You did buy me one!” Marian wriggled ecstatically 
in her chair. “I know you did!” 

Catherine waited with them for a home-bound bus. 
Spencer pulled her head down and whispered in her ear, 
“Mother, couldn’t I go to the office and wait till you come 
home? I don’t want to go with them.” 

“It’s too many hours, Spencer. You wouldn’t know 
what to do with yourself.” 

“Well, I don’t know, anyway.” His eyes darkened. 
“Staying home and no school and-” 

“Here comes our bus,” Miss Kelly marshalled them 
before her, maneuvered them neatly up the steps. Cath¬ 
erine waved to them, watched their bus disappear in the 
melee of cars. Then she edged through the crowd to the 
windows, and walked slowly toward the office. The cold 
sunshine veneered the intent faces, the displays of gauds 
and kickshaws. 

Being downtown makes Christmas quite different, she 
thought. An enormous advertising scheme. That’s it. 
Five more shopping days before Christmas. Look at 
that window! She strolled past it, her eyes bright with 
derision. Extraordinary, useless, expensive things, good 
for gifts, and nothing else on earth. Christmas belonged 
in the country, in the delicate mystery and secrecy with 
which children could invest it. Not in these glaring 
windows. A saturnalia of selling, that’s Christmas in 
New York, she thought, darting across the street as the 
traffic officer’s signal released the flood of pedestrians. 
Something strained, feverish, in the crowds. Probably 
half of them with empty purses. Like her own. 



BLIND ALLEYS 


201 


Dr. Roberts stood at her window, waiting for her. 

“Eve been talking with President Waterbury, Mrs. 
Hammond, and I wished to see you at once.” He pulled 
reflectively at his pointed beard. “There are various ins 
and outs here. I don’t know that you’ve been here long 
enough to discover them.” 

Catherine wondered, with faint discomfort, whether 
President Waterbury had disapproved of something she 
had done. 

“A deplorable jealousy, for example, between depart¬ 
ments.” He cleared his throat. 

Catherine sat down. She had learned to wait until Dr. 
Roberts had sent off preliminary sputtering fireworks be¬ 
fore he uncovered his serious purpose. 

“I happened to learn that Smithson, in the local social 
department, was interviewing Dr. Waterbury. Had seen 
him twice. So I was at once suspicious. Smithson, 
you’ve met him? Well, he’s the type of parasite this 
kind of organization attracts, unfortunately. We haven’t 
many here, but they exist. Afraid to finish up a job, 
because then another may not turn up. He’s nursed along 
his study of sanitation, I should blush to say how long. 
No doubt the buildings in his original investigation have 
crumbled into decay. And he hasn’t published a word. 
But he can’t put off publication much longer, you see. 
And so he hit upon this other scheme. He doesn’t belong 
in our field.” Dr. Roberts’s bright little eyes snapped, 
his beard waggled in a fury. “But he had the audacity 
to go to Waterbury with this suggestion. He wants to 
make the field study for me! He—he—” Dr. Roberts 
stuttered tripping furiously over his consonants. “H-he 
of-ff-fered to go out west, to gather field mat-t-terial 


202 


LABYRINTH 


for us. Told Waterbury that I couldn’t go, as I was in 
charge of things here at headquarters. He had almost 
convinced the President. He’s smooth. Smooth!” 

“But why on earth does he want to go?” Catherine’s 
voice placated the irate little man. “It certainly isn’t his 
kind of work.” 

“Not at all. Not at all. But he sets himself up for a 
dexterous investigator. And Waterbury likes him. The 
point is this. I can’t very well go myself. But you can! 
I pointed out to Dr. Waterbury that logically you were 
the person to go.” 

“To go where, Dr. Roberts?” Catherine sat very still, 
but back in her head she heard a clear little bell of ex¬ 
citement begin its clanging. 

“You have personality and tact. You’ve already met 
two of the chief educators of the state. You have the 
work at the tips of your fingers. Who could be better? 
Dr. Waterbury agreed with me. It would be an agree¬ 
able diversion, no doubt, and of course,” he added with 
proud finality, “then I can obtain for you the raise in 
salary you deserve.” 

“You mean that you would like me to make the per¬ 
sonal inspection of all these schools?” Catherine’s hand 
moved vaguely toward the shelves of catalogues. 

“Just that. It is time now to have that done. Smith- 
son has—yes, he has snooped around, discovering that. 
He wants the amusement of such a trip, and the glory. 
For it is an excellent thing. For your reputation. Your 
expenses are paid, too.” 

“Why don’t you go yourself?” 

“It’s not precisely convenient. There are several meet¬ 
ings in January. I am to speak at one of them.” 


BLIND ALLEYS 


203 

I can’t go, thought Catherine. Ridiculous to con¬ 
sider it. 

“Don’t decide immediately. Think it over. Let me 
know—why, after Christmas. Late in January would 
do to start. You can no doubt arrange matters at home. 
You’d like to talk it over with Dr. Hammond, of course.” 

“How long a trip would it be?” Catherine was vibrat¬ 
ing under the clanging of that bell. No, it wasn’t a bell, 
it was a pulse beating just back of her ears. 

“You can decide that yourself, practically. Perhaps a 
month. Depends upon your arrangement of your route. 
I say, that’s fine!” He rose, slapping his hands against 
his pockets. “You’ll think it out! It’s by, far the best 
way to convince Waterbury you are serious, and worth a 
real salary.” 

Think it out! Catherine let the idea play with her. 
Trains, new cities, new people, herself as dignified repre¬ 
sentative of the Bureau. But the children! She couldn’t 
leave them—and Charles. Her clothes weren’t up to such 
a position. She could buy more! Her salary would 
grow to cover—anything! 

When she went home in the cold winter twilight, she 
had coiled the project into a tight spring, held firmly down 
below thought. She couldn’t go. How could she? But 
she had a week before she must reject it openly. The 
pressure of that coiled spring was terrific. At any instant 
it might tear up through thought and feeling. 

Mrs. O’Lay had been persuaded to divide her day so 
that she spent part of the afternoon in her own base¬ 
ment, and then stayed to serve dinner and clear up the 
kitchen for Catherine. Charles said he felt as if an Irish 


204 


LABYRINTH 


hippopotamus hovered at his elbow at the table, but Cath¬ 
erine stretched luxurously into freedom from dinner re¬ 
sponsibility. If Mrs. O’Lay had a sketchy art as a cook, 
Catherine found dinner more palatable than when she had 
flown into domestic harness at the end of the day. 

The children were full of whispering excitement; the 
house was made up of restricted zones. Marian wasn’t 
to put her head inside Spencer’s door, and mother 
shouldn’t look into his closet. Charles had brought home 
a tree as tall as Spencer, which spread its branches droop¬ 
ing and green in front of the living room windows. Miss 
Kelly, calmly methodical as ever, helped the children string 
cranberries and popcorn to wind through the needles. 

“Saturday we will trim it,” Catherine promised them, 
“and Saturday night you can each wrap your presents in 
red paper and label them.” 

“Then you’ll see them when we are in bed,” protested 
Marian. 

“I won’t take a single peek!” 

Saturday afternoon Catherine stood on a chair, hunt¬ 
ing on the top shelf of the hall closet for the box of tinsel 
and small tree lights. Surely she had left it there on that 
shelf. She smiled a little, at her own warm content. 
The shimmering joy of the children had thrown its glow 
over her, too, and the sardonic Christmas of the streets 
seemed remote, unreal. 

“Hurry up, Muvver dear!” called Marian. “Isn’t it 
there?” 

Catherine felt the corner of a pasteboard box, tugged 
at it, caught it as it slipped over the edge of the shelf, the 
cover whirling past her hand. 

She stared at the contents— a handbag of soft, tooled 


BLIND ALLEYS 


205 

leather, with carved fastenings of dull gold. Guiltily 
she reached for the cover at her feet. She had stumbled 
upon Charles’s hiding place. He shouldn’t have been so 
extravagant. Her fingers brushed the soft brown surface 
in a swift caress as she pushed on the cover, and rose to 
tiptoe to replace the box. 

There, the other box was in the corner. 

“What are you after up there?” Charles spoke sharply 
from the door. 

Catherine, her cheeks flushing, dragged out the box of 
trimmings. 

“This!” she called gaily, “for our tree!” She mustn’t 
let him guess that she had seen that bag. She slipped one 
hand under his arm, laughing to herself at his perturbed 
eyes. He was in Spencer’s class, with that serious fear 
lest his secret be unearthed before the exact moment. 
“Come help trim it. You can arrange the lights.” 

And as they worked, Catherine turned tentatively to 
that coiled spring of her desire, and found the resilience 
had vanished. She did not wish to go. She couldn’t 
leave them. Going off to work each day was different. 
She needed that. But to go away, for days and 
nights- 

“Moth-er!” Spencer’s horrified accents came from the 
other side of the tree. “Letty’s chewing the cranberry 
string!” 

“Here, you!” Catherine swung her up to her shoulder. 
How heavy she was growing! “You fasten Spencer’s 
star to the top branch.” 



206 


LABYRINTH 


X 

Catherine woke. What was that old crone crouched 
inquisitively at the foot of her bed? She lifted her head 
cautiously; nothing but her bathrobe over a chair, indis¬ 
tinct in the vague light. It must be very early. She 
caught the steady rhythm of Charles’s breathing. She 
curled down again under the blankets, full of the relaxed 
ecstasy in which she had slept so dreamlessly. Dearest— 
she flowed out toward him in a great, windless tide. I’ve 
found him again, she thought. We’re out of the thickets. 

Dimly she heard the clatter of horses’ hoofs, the clink¬ 
ing of milk bottles. It is morning, then. She listened 
unconsciously for the shrill “Merry Christmas!” of the 
children. They would wake soon. 

As she lay, waiting, effortless, relaxed, a strange phan¬ 
tasy drifted over her, like morning fog in low places. 
She couldn’t, drowsily, quite grasp it. Charles had not 
known about that plan, tugging, tempting her this last 
week. How could he have known when she rejected it, 
completely? And yet, as if he had felt that rejection, 
fed upon it, sacrificial offering to him, he had been grandly 
magnanimous, lavish, taking her submission. 

Perhaps—she stirred slowly out of the mists—perhaps 
it was only her own knowledge of the rejection, the sacri¬ 
fice, binding her more closely to the roots of love, slough¬ 
ing off that critical, offish self. 

She was wide awake now, thinking clearly. Why had 
she so suddenly decided? What, after all, had wiped out 
the vigor, the great drive in that desire? She knew just 
what it meant, her going or her refusal to go. Refusal 
marked her forever as half-hearted, as temporizing, so 


BLIND ALLEYS 


207 

far as her work went. That she had recognized from the 
beginning. 

Just the glimpse of that bag, the soft leather under her 
fingers, had settled matters. Without a conscious thought. 
An extravagant, lovely trifle, but a symbol of the old 
tender awareness she had so loved in him. Ridiculous, 
that a thing could have the power to touch you so. Be¬ 
hind it, shadowy, serried, other things—trifles, evidence 
that Charles gave her sensitive perception, that he loved 
her, not himself reflected in her. Just that he knew her 
purse was serviceable and shabby. 

Foolish, and adorable. She sighed, happily. He would 
hate my going away. He would be outraged. 

A faint sound outside the door, a scuffle of bare feet, 
and then a burst into chorus, “Merry Christmas! 
Merry—” The door flew open, and in they rushed, the 
three of them. Catherine shot upright, reaching for her 
bathrobe. 

“Merry Christmas, but hurry back where it’s warm.” 

Marian flung her arms around Charles’s sleepy head. 
“Merry Christmas, my Daddy!” 

“It’s only the middle of the night, isn’t it?” Charles 
groaned. 

“It’s Christmas morning, and you hurry and get 
up!” 

When the arduous business of dressing was over, 
Charles turned the switch, and the colored lights starred 
the little tree. No one was to unwrap a present until 
after breakfast. Too much excitement on empty stom¬ 
achs, insisted Catherine. The children dragged the table 
nearer the door and ranged themselves along the side, so 
that they could gaze as they ate. 


208 


LABYRINTH 


Presently the room was a gay litter of tissue paper, 
colored ribbons, toys, books. Letty sat in the middle of 
her pile, revolving like a yellow top among the exciting 
things. Spencer had waited tensely while Catherine un¬ 
wrapped a large bundle, and then turned a little pale 
with delight at her surprise. Yes, he had made it himself, 
at school. It was a stand for a fern. He had carved it, 
too. Book ends for his father. Then he had immersed 
himself in his own possessions. 

Charles admired the platinum cuff links in the little 
purple box with Catherine’s card. Catherine grinned at 
him. “Nice to give you a present,” she said, “without 
having to ask you for the money for it.” She regretted 
her words; his smile seemed forced. 

“What did Daddy give you, Muvver?” Marian, hug¬ 
ging her doll, pressed against Catherine’s knee. 

“Well, this.” Catherine held up a box of chocolates. 

“That’s not all,” said Charles promptly. 

“Here’s another.” Spencer wiggled along on his knees 
to hand her another box. 

Long and thin—that wasn’t the same box. Catherine 
unwrapped the paper, and long black silk stockings dan¬ 
gled from her fingers. 

“Fine,” she said. “Just what I wanted.” She waited 
for a repetition of “That’s not all,” but Charles said only, 
“I didn’t know what you would like.” 

She glanced up quickly. He was teasing her—they had 
joked about useful gifts. But he had picked up a book. 
The red cover blurred before Catherine’s eyes. He was 
pulling his chair up to the table light. 

The stockings clung to her finger tips, as if her be¬ 
wilderment electrified them. Mrs. O’Lay, lumbering 


BLIND ALLEYS 


209 

through the hall to the kitchen, stopped at the door in 
loud admiration of the tree. 

Margaret and Mrs. Spencer were coming in for early 
dinner. Catherine flung herself into a numbing round 
of preparations. Whatever it meant, the day shouldn’t 
be spoiled for the children. Whatever it meant—he 
couldn’t have forgotten the bag. She had seen it there. 
She remembered his sharp inquiry, as she reached to the 
shelf. Perhaps her mother had hidden it, or Margaret. 
No, he knew about it. A sickening wave of suspicion 
curled through her, so that she straightened from her 
odorous dish of onions, browning for the dressing. It’s 
his gift, to some one else. The wave subsided, leaving a 
line of wreckage—and certainty. 

Funny, how you catch a second wind, when you are 
knocked out, thought Catherine, as the day wound along. 
No one even guessed. The children were amazingly good. 
Even Letty went peacefully to her nap, after a few 
moments of wracking indecision as to which new toy 
should accompany her. Margaret left early, for a Christ¬ 
mas party somewhere. Catherine and her mother stood 
in her room, Mrs. Spencer adjusting her veil at the 
mirror. They were going out for a Christmas walk with 
Spencer and Marian, leaving Mrs. O’Lay in charge. 
Catherine heard a cautious step in the hall. She did not 
move. But she knew when the feet stopped at the closet 
door; she heard the faint scrape of pasteboard on the 
shelf. 

‘T’m going over to the office.” Charles stopped at the 
door. “I’ll probably be home before you are.” 

“Poor fellow!” Mrs. Spencer cajoled him, her hands 


210 


LABYRINTH 


patting her sleek gloves into place. “Must you work 
even on Christmas Day?” 

“Just a few odds and ends of work.” Charles looked 
uneasy. But he nodded, and presently the hall door 
closed after him. 


PART IV 


ENCOUNTER 







PART IV 


ENCOUNTER 

I 

“Dr. Gilbert will be in immediately.” The neat little 
office nurse ushered Catherine into the living room. “She 
left word for tea at five.” 

Catherine said she would wait. The nurse bent down 
to touch a match to the gas log, and tiny blue flames 
leaped in mechanical imitation of a hearth fire. Catherine 
stood at the window, drawing off her gloves. The build¬ 
ings between the hotel and the corner of the Avenue had 
been demolished since her last visit; beneath the windows 
gaped a huge chasm, rocky, pitted with pools of dark 
water, angled with cranes and derricks,—like a fairy tale, 
thought Catherine, and the old witch froze them into 
immobility with her stick, her stick being a holiday. 

The room was Henrietta, unimaginative, practical, dis¬ 
interested. Expensive, department store furniture, over¬ 
stuffed chairs and davenport, floor lamp, mahogany. 
Henrietta had ordered the furnishings, the maid had set 
them in place, and there they stayed, unworn, impersonal. 
A maid wheeled in the tea wagon, and Henrietta’s firm 
heels sounded in the hall. 

“Catherine! Good for you.” Henrietta clapped her 

shoulder as she passed. “Afraid something might detain 

213 


214 


LABYRINTH 


you.” She shook off her heavy English coat, and went 
briskly to pouring tea. Her close hat had flattened her 
fine light hair above her temples, giving additional plump 
serenity to her face. 

“That’s all, Susie,” she told the maid. “If there are 
any calls for me, take them. I am undisturbed for one 
hour pow.” 

“Ah, this is great!” She stretched her feet toward the 
humming gas log; shining toes, ankles slim even in the 
gray spats. “I suppose you have a mission, since you 
take the time to come down here to-day. But whatever 
it is, I am glad to see you.” 

Catherine sipped at the tea. The hot, clear fragrance 
was an auger, releasing words. 

“Shrewd guess, Henry.” She smiled. “I want advice.” 

“Help yourself.” Henrietta’s teeth closed in her sand¬ 
wich with relish. 

“And I wanted it from you,” Catherine spoke slowly, 
“because I want advice that goes in my direction.” 

“Kind we always want. Only kind we take.” 

“Here it is.” Catherine placed her tea cup on the 
wagon. “Just before Christmas Dr. Roberts asked me to 
go west, to make the first-hand study of the schools, you 
know. He gave me until to-morrow to decide.” Hen¬ 
rietta’s eyes, alert, sharp, over the edge of her cup, waited. 
“More money, for one thing. Reputation. Chance to 
show what I can do. But I have to be gone almost a 
month, I think. I decided at once that it was out of the 
question.” 

“Why?” 

“That was a week ago.” Catherine leaned forward. 
“In a fit of sentiment. And egoism. I thought they 


ENCOUNTER 


215 

couldn’t get along without me, of course. Then—no 
use to explain the particular eye-opener-—I changed my 
mind. I began to wonder whether this wasn’t a sort of 
test. To see how serious I am. About a job, I mean. 
Now! Advise me to go.” 

“Of course, no one is really indispensable.” Henrietta 
grinned. “No one. And what’s a month?” 

“It seems a long time to leave the children.” 

“Be good for them as well as you. Isn’t Miss Kelly 
capable of handling them?” 

“I suppose so.” 

“Most families would be improved by enforced separa¬ 
tions,” declared Henrietta. “They’re too tight. Break 
’em up. What does Charles say to this?” 

“He hasn’t heard of it yet.” 

“Decide first and then tell him, eh?” Henrietta drew 
out her eyeglasses, running her fingers absently along the 
black ribbon. “He won’t approve, at first. But it is a 
test. You’re right. Your first opportunity to enlarge 
your position. You’d be a fool not to go, Catherine.” 

“That’s just what I wanted to hear.” Catherine’s eyes 
were somber, harassed. “I’ve thought it out, backwards 
and forwards. Mother’s friend wants to visit some one 
in New Jersey. If Mother will spend the night at the 
house—but she won’t approve, either.” 

“Get your approval out of the job, Catherine.” Hen¬ 
rietta squinted through her eyeglass. “You want it on 
every hand, don’t you?” 

Catherine lowered her eyelids. 

“I did, once. I think I do less, now.” 

“That’s right!” 

They were silent a moment. 


2 l6 


LABYRINTH 


“That’s ripping!” Henrietta broke out. “That the 
Bureau offered it to you. You can’t turn it down. I’ll 
drop in occasionally on the kids, if that will calm your 
anxiety.” 

“You really think it’s not a preposterous scheme, 
then?” 

“The only preposterousness would be in refusing it. 
It’s ripping!” 

“What is ripping?” 

Catherine turned, a quick stir of pleasure at the low 
voice. Bill was at the door. 

“Come in and hear about it.” Henrietta waved toward 
a chair. “Tea?” 

Bill shook his head and sat down near Catherine. He 
sagged in his chair, a suggestion of unkempt, wrinkled 
weariness in his face and clothes. 

Henrietta explained in hard, glowing phrases, that 
Catherine had the opportunity of a lifetime. As Cath¬ 
erine listened and watched, she had a renewal of the 
strange feeling which had haunted her since Christmas 
morning. We are so lonely—so shut off—so absolutely 
isolated, she thought. Each of us speaks only his own 
language. We think we reach another human being, that 
he knows our tongue, and we discover that we have 
fooled ourselves. Grotesquely. Charles—remote, un¬ 
reachable. I imagined that contact. Bill, and Henrietta 
—she is content, thinking she communicates with Bill. 

“Are you going?” Bill glanced at her under his heavy 
lids. 

“I think I am,” she said. She wished she could find 
his thought which reached toward her. 

“Perhaps I’ll see you. I have to go to Chicago the end 


ENCOUNTER 


217 

of the month on that Dexter contract,” he added, to 
Henrietta. 

He left them presently, and when Catherine rose to go, 
Henrietta’s hand lingered, fumbling—queerly for her— 
over Catherine’s fingers. 

“I hope you and Bill make connections,” she said. 
“He’s not well. I don’t know—listless, needs a change, I 
guess.” 

Catherine stared at the anxiety, the puzzled bewilder¬ 
ment in Henrietta’s round blue eyes. 

“I’ve been worrying at him to see a specialist here, and 
he won’t. Can’t budge him, stubborn old Bill. He enjoys 
you, Cathy. Have dinner or something with him.” 

“If we do make connections, of course I shall.” Cath¬ 
erine felt a little prickling of guilt, as if in some way 
Bill’s confidence violated complete loyalty to Henrietta. 
“I’m fond of Bill,” she added. 

“There’s nothing seriously wrong with him. But— 
there’s a gland specialist here in town. I told Bill his 
cynicism would vanish like the dew if he’d let himself be 
gone over.” Henrietta frowned. “He said if his philos¬ 
ophy was located in his liver, he preferred to keep his 
illusions about it.” 

“Oh, you doctors ! Thinking every feeling has its roots 
in some gland, and that you can diagnose any un¬ 
happiness.” 

“Jeer all you like.” Henrietta’s moment of perplexity 
had passed. “We’re animals, Cathy, and a reasonably 
healthy animal is reasonably happy.” 

Catherine reached for purse and gloves; as she dangled 
the shabby black bag over a finger, she felt the stealthy, 
restless feet of her obsession begin their pacing. Charles, 


218 LABYRINTH 

and Stella Partridge. Charles, with all his tenderness, his 
love- 

With diabolic abruptness Henrietta said: 

“Oh, by the way, I ran into that Miss Partridge last 
week, at the hospital. Do you see much of her?” 

Catherine flinched. The stealthy feet were running. 

“What made you think of her?” she asked. 

“Oh—” Henrietta hesitated. “Thinking about you and 
Charles. I had a little talk with her, while we waited. 
She’s an interesting type, I think.” 

“What do you make of her? Charles seems to admire 
her immensely.” 

“So do several of the staff. She’s the kind of modern 
woman men do like. Unoriginal, useful, wonderful 
assistant. Cold as a frog—they don’t guess that. She’s 
clever. Her line is that men are so generous and fine, 
give her every opportunity to advance.” 

“What is she after, do you think?” 

“Money. Position. But she’s parasitical. Not in the 
old sense. She’s sidetracked all her sex into her ambi¬ 
tion, but she uses it as skillfully as if she wanted a lover 
or a husband.” 

“I have seen very little of her.” Catherine was busy 
with her gloves. She wanted to escape before those 
shrewd blue eyes caught a glimpse of her caged, uneasy, 
obsessive fear. 

“She’ll get on,” said Henrietta. “Wish you could stay 
for dinner, Catherine. No? Let me know if I can help 
you out. Tell Charles I think he should be immensely 
proud of you, being offered this trip, will you? I’ll run 
in some evening soon and tell him myself.” 



ENCOUNTER 


219 


II 

Dinner was ready when Catherine reached home. She 
went in to bid Letty good night; Miss Kelly had put her 
to bed, a doll on each side of her yellow head. As the 
small arms flew about Catherine’s throat, choking her, 
and she caught the sweet fragrance of the drowsy, warm 
skin her lips brushed, a panic of negation seized her. Go 
away, for days and days, without that soft ecstasy of 
touch, of assurance? She was mad to think of it. 
“There, Letty, that’s a lovely hug.” She drew the blanket 
close to the small chin. 

“An’ tuck in Tilda and liT Pet,” murmured Letty. 
“My Muv-ver dear.” 

What was sentimental and what was sane ? Catherine, 
smoothing into place the heavy coil of her hair, washing 
her hands, delaying her entrance to the living room, where 
she heard, vaguely, the voices of Charles and the children, 
struggled slowly to lift her head above the maelstrom. It 
was only for a few weeks out of a lifetime. The chil¬ 
dren would not suffer. And I want to go, she thought. 
Something leaped within her, vigorous, hungry, clam¬ 
orous. It’s not loving them less, to need something outside 
them, beyond them, something worth the temporary price 
of absence. Charles loved them, and yet he could go 
freely, without any of these qualms, into danger, for 
months. 

She marched into the living room, her resolution firm. 
She would tell Charles about it, after dinner. Perhaps he 
would be indifferent. Perhaps—her obsession bared its 
teeth behind the flimsy bars—he might be relieved, at 
freedom to follow other desires. 


220 


LABYRINTH 


Marian, perched on the arm of her father’s chair, one 
arm tight about his neck, squirmed to look up at Cath¬ 
erine, expectant brightness in her eyes. Spencer stood 
in front of them, hands in his pockets, his face puckered 
intensely. 

“Couldn't it be managed some way, Daddy?” he begged. 

“Where’s your allowance?” Charles stretched lazily, 
one hand enclosing Marian’s slippered feet, dancing them 
slowly up and down. 

“It’s all in hock, for three weeks.” Spencer was 
dolorous. “For Christmas presents, and they’re all over.” 

“It’s where?” Catherine laughed, and Spencer spun 
around, hope smoothing out some of his puckers. 

“Hock. That’s what Tom says. But he says when 
he needs more money he asks his mother and she tells 
his father and he gets it.” 

“And who is Tom?” Charles stood up, swinging 
Marian to her feet. “Let’s have dinner.” 

It was Tom Wilcox on the floor below. Spencer had 
spent the afternoon there; his story came out in excited 
fragments. He had helped set up a radio apparatus, and 
he wanted one, to rig up on his bed, like Tom’s. Then he 
could wake up in the night and listen to a concert, or a 
man telling about the weather. 

“He lent me a book about it, Mother.” He poised his 
fork in mid-air, and down splashed his bit of mashed 
potato. 

“Watch what you are doing, sir,” said Charles. 

Spencer flushed, but hurried on, “And I know I could 
set one up alone, and it’s wonderful, Mother, you can 
listen to things thousands of miles away, an’-” 

“If Spencer has one, I want one on my bed, too,” 



ENCOUNTER 


221 


declared Marian, with a demure, sidewise glance at her 
father. “Couldn’t I have one, Daddy?” 

“Spencer hasn’t one yet.” Charles teased him. 

“How much do they cost?” asked Catherine, gently. 
Marian’s glance bothered her. The child couldn’t—how 
could she?—feel that thicket which had sprung up this 
last week, enough to range herself deliberately with her 
father. 

“Well, quite a lot of dollars. Four or five or mebbe 
six.” Spencer was doubtful. “But they last forever, 
Tom says, an’-” 

“What would you do with it?” 

Spencer caught the tantalizing undertone in his father’s 
voice. 

“Listen!” he cried, “of course, listen!” 

“Careful, Spencer.” Catherine’s eyes steadied him; 
poor kid! She knew that irritating helplessness. “I’m 
sure it is interesting.” 

Mrs. O’Lay heaved herself around the table. “That 
roast ain’t so good as it might be,” she observed confi¬ 
dentially to Catherine. “Butchers is snides, that’s all.” 

“It was all right.” Catherine ignored Charles’s lifted 
eyebrows. The salad did look a little messy. 

“Do you think, Mother, that perhaps-” 

“Can’t you talk about something else for a while, 
Spencer?” Charles spoke up curtly. 

Catherine’s fingers gripped her serving fork. 

“I’ll see, Spencer,” she said, clearly. “Later we’ll talk 
about it.” 

“If he has it, I want it,” Marian insisted. 

“Will you change the subject?” 

Charles’s outbreak wrapped a heavy silence about the 




222 


LABYRINTH 


children. Catherine’s spoon clicked in the bowl of salad 
dressing. How ghastly, she thought. It’s our dissension, 
using them. Spencer had ducked his head; his nostrils 
dilated, his eyes moved unhappily from her face to his 
father’s. 

“Let’s see, school opens on Wednesday, doesn’t it?” 
She sought for safe words with which to rescue them. 
“You have to-morrow. Miss Kelly is going shopping 
for you. A coat for Marian-” 

“Is she going to select clothes for them?” asked 
Charles, accusingly. 

“Oh, she can do that. I’ve given her a price limit. 
The only difficult thing is shopping within that limit.” 

“I never had a bought coat, did I, Muvver?” Marian 
broke in. “Only coats you sewed for me.” 

“You’re getting to be such a big girl.” What pos¬ 
sessed the children, anyway! Catherine heard Charles 
grunt faintly as if some huge dissatisfaction was con¬ 
firmed. “And now-” 

“You have more important things to do than mere 
sewing for the children.” 

“Yes.” Catherine was flint, sending off sparks. “And 
I have money to bridge the difference in price.” 

Silence again, murky, uncomfortable. Finally the 
ordeal of dinner was done with. Charles offered, with 
detectable ostentation, to read to Marian. Spencer pulled 
his chair around until the back cut him off in a corner 
with his book on radio-practice. Catherine, after consul¬ 
tation with Mrs. O'Lay, withdrew to the study, where 
she opened her drawer of the desk, and spread out the 
array of bills. Not all of them were in yet; this was 
only the second of January, and a holiday at that. But 




ENCOUNTER 


223 

there were enough! She set down figures, added, grimly 
—how few bills it took to make a hundred dollars!— 
and all the time, under the external business of reckon¬ 
ing, whirled a tumult of half recognized thoughts. Un¬ 
endurable, that dissension should be tangled enough to 
catch the children in its meshes. Since Christmas day 
she had held herself remote, ice-enclosed. She had felt 
Charles try to reach her, felt his fingers slip, chilled, from 
her impenetrable surface, until he chose this method. As 
if he brandished the tender body of a child as his weapon, 
threatening to bruise it against her hard aloofness. Her 
hands dropped idly on the tormenting bills, and she let 
herself fully into that whirling tumult. Whatever hap¬ 
pened, she must prevent another hour like that at dinner. 
If they must be opposed, she and Charles, it must be in 
themselves, not with the children as buffers or weapons. 
When they had gone to bed, she would go in to Charles. 

Could she say, I know you are in love with Stella 
Partridge? Did she know it? If she said that, he might 
think that this trip, her going away, was revenge, or 
jealousy. Well, wasn’t it? She could hear his voice, 
dramatizing the fairy story he read, so that Marian broke 
in occasionally with faint “Oh’s!” or delighted giggles. 
Why had she decided that she must go ? Defense, perhaps; 
not revenge. She felt again that strong, twisted cable 
of her own integrity. He wanted her submissive, docile, 
violating herself. He might say that she had driven him 
away, had failed him. But Stella—that had begun months 
ago. She could pick up threads of evidence, all down 
the days since summer. Then he might deny it, being 
secretly bland and pleased that she revealed herself as 
jealous, like a beggar at a door where she had once 


224 


LABYRINTH 


dwelt. Perhaps there was little to the affair. She had 
a brief, strange fancy—he had swung slightly in his orbit, 
so that the side toward her was cold, dead, like the dark 
face of the moon—and the light, the awareness of her— 
all of that was turned away, out of possibility of any 
incidence, any impingement from her. 

No. She would tell him only that she wanted to go 
away for a few weeks. That she would arrange every¬ 
thing so that his life would be quite as always. That she 
hoped—faint hope!—that he might find some small 
pleasure in this degree of success she had achieved. 

If I pretend that I have noticed nothing, she thought 
at last, then it may be in the end that there was little to 
notice. If I can cling to my love, it may be like that old 
man of the sea, changing into horrible shapes under my 
hands, but changing back, if I have courage to hang on, 
into its true shape. 

“Time for bed-ne-go,” came Charles’s voice down the 
hall. 

“Please, can I finish this chapter, Daddy?” Spencer 
begged. 

“Better put your book mark right there, son, and run 
along.” 

He had read himself into a better humor, thought 
Catherine. She brushed the bills into the drawer. Her 
check would be larger this month. 

“Come along, chickens.” She stood at the doorway; 
her glance at Charles gathered him clearly—the line of 
lower eyelid, the angle of his chin. Marian slid down 
from his knee, sighing. 

“Daddy read me a lovely story, all about a fairy 
prince.” 


ENCOUNTER 


225 

She bent to kiss Marian good-night, with a final pat 
to the blankets. 

“Ell dream about a fairy prince, Muvver,” came the 
child’s voice, muffled as she snuggled out of reach of the 
cold wind. 

Spencer’s arms shot up about her throat, tugging her 
down where he could whisper. 

“Moth-er, do you think I could have a radio receiving 
set?” 

Catherine smiled. 

“Well—” she hesitated. “You have a birthday before 
long. In March. I’ll have to find out more about them. 
Could you wait ?” 

“Oh, Moth-er!” His hug was exuberant. “Moth-er 
darling!” 

Catherine closed his door, and poised an instant in the 
hall, priming her courage. “Nowi” she said, under her 
breath. 

Before she had moved, however, the doorbell clat¬ 
tered, smudging her flame of determination. 

Charles came briskly through the hall. 

“Oh, you there?” But he went on to the door. 

Ill 

It was the Thomases, Mrs. Thomas explaining wordily 
that they had spent the day in town, luncheon, matinee, 
dinner, and thought they would just drop in for a time, 
before the ten-thirty train home. 

More than an hour to their train time. To Catherine, 
let down so suddenly from her peak of resolution, the 
evening was garbled, like a column in a newspaper struck 


226 


LABYRINTH 


off from pied type, with words and phrases at random 
making sense, and all the rest unintelligible. Mrs. Thomas 
was full of holiday vivacity; the plumes on her black hat 
quivered in every filament. Those plumes bothered Cath¬ 
erine; she had seen them before, perhaps not at that 
angle, or perhaps not on that hat. No, they were generic 
plumes; eternal symbol of the academic wife and her 
best hat, her prodigious effort at respectable attire. 

Mr. Thomas wanted to talk shop, if Charles would 
permit him. One leg crossed over his knee jerked ab¬ 
sently in rhythm as he spoke. A student of his was 
working on psychological tests for poetic creation, an 
analysis of the poetic type of thought processes. Against 
their talk, like trills and grace notes against the base 
chords, rippled Mrs. Thomas indittle anecdotes of Percy, 
of Clara, of Dorothy, of Walter. 

“Walter wanted Spencer to come out for a few days 
this vacation. Be so nice for’him to get into the country. 
But Percy had a little sore throat, and of course with 
children you never know what that may mean. I told 
him perhaps between semesters—the children always have 
a few days then.” 

“That’s very kind of you.” Catherine heard the de¬ 
termined phrases Charles set forth: “The poetic mind is 
never intellectual. Always purely emotional, intuitive, 
governed by associative processes.” She felt that her 
smile was a mawkish simper. “To think of adding an¬ 
other child to your household.” 

“I’ll tell Walter, then, that perhaps in February.” 

And presently, Mr. Thomas, blinking behind his glasses, 
turned his gentle smile toward Catherine. 

“We hear great things of you, Mrs. Hammond.” 


ENCOUNTER 


227 

“Oh, yes.” Mrs. Thomas nodded. Catherine felt the 
quick stiffening of attention, and thought, here’s what 
they came in for. What is it? She flung out her hand 
to ward off danger, but unsuspectingly Mr. Thomas 
hurled his bomb. 

“Dr. Roberts tells us you’ve been appointed field in¬ 
vestigator. He is particularly enthusiastic about it. You 
deserve congratulations.” 

“But, dear Mrs. Hammond, are you really going? I 
said to Mr. Thomas I couldn’t believe it unless you told 
me yourself.” 

Catherine rushed pell-mell into words. She must stir 
up enough dust to hide Charles’s face, to keep him 
silent. 

“It isn’t really settled. Dr. Roberts asked me to go, 
but I haven’t agreed, as yet. Interesting, of course, fasci¬ 
nating.” She saw, breathlessly, the little glance of tri¬ 
umph Mrs. Thomas sent her husband. 

“I said I didn’t see how a mother could leave her 
family.” 

“Only for a short time, of course. Don’t you think 
we all need some kind of respite?” 

“Well, I remember the doctor sent me to Atlantic City, 
after Dorothy’s birth.” And Mrs. Thomas related with 
gusto her homesickness, her dire imaginings each hour 
of absence. “You never know what might happen! 
Even now, I can’t help wondering if they are covered 
warmly enough, although Mrs. Bates promised to stay 
till we came home.” 

Inconsequential, drifting bits of conversation—the min¬ 
utes until they should go were thin wires, drawing Cath¬ 
erine to the brink of the whirlpool. Charles was 


228 LABYRINTH 

laboriously talkative, and she heard the rushing of his 
winds of grievance. 

They were going! 

“You’ll send Spencer out, then, some day. He could 
come with Mr. Thomas. For a week-end, say. Walter 
would be so pleased.” 

And then, as they stood in the hall, Mr. Thomas 
dropped another bomb. 

“You haven’t decided, I suppose, about that western 
position, Hammond? Your husband was talking it over 
with me at luncheon one day,” he added to Catherine. 
“There’s something gratifying in the idea of controlling 
a department and the entire policy, I think.” 

It was Charles’s turn now to hurry into words, vague, 
temporizing words. 

Catherine returned to the living room and sat down. 
She had a queer illusion that if she moved too quickly, 
she might break; she was brittle, tight. Charles came 
back to the doorway, his chin thrust out. Why, it was 
funny, ridiculous—caught out, each of them. This must 
be a dream. It was too absurd for reality. She began 
to laugh. She didn’t wish to laugh, but she was helpless, 
as if some monstrous jest seized her and shook her. Was 
it she, laughing, or the jest, outside her, shaking her? 
She couldn’t stop. 

“Evidently you are amused.” Charles strode past her. 
She wanted to deny that, to explain that it wasn’t she 
laughing. But she couldn’t stop that gasping ribald 
sound. “Catherine!” he stood above her, enormous, mag¬ 
nified by the tears in her eyes. “Catherine!” 

Abruptly the monstrous jest dropped her, limp, and the 
laughter had burst through the thin partition into sobs. 


ENCOUNTER 


229 


She twisted away from him, flinging an arm up to shield 
her face, her body pressed against the chair, seeking some¬ 
thing hard, immovable, to check its convulsive racking. 
She knew that Charles bent over her. She wanted to 
scream at him to go away, to leave her alone, but she 
doubled her first against her lips. She struggled back 
heavily to the narrow, tortuous path of control. For days 
she had walked too near the edge for safety. She could 
breathe now. If she could lie there, quiet, for a time— 
but Charles was waiting. Her hands dropped to her 
lap, she relaxed, emptily, and slowly she turned her face. 
Charles watched her; alarm, and a sort of scorn on his 
face. He thought she had chosen that as a weapon— 
feminine hysterics. 

“Well?” His gruffness was a shield over his alarm, 
she knew. 

“I am sorry.” Her voice had the faint quiver of spent 
tears. “I really didn’t intend—but it suddenly looked— 
ridiculous.” 

“I don’t see what’s funny.” Charles sat down stiffly. 
“In my hearing of my wife’s plans from outsiders.” 

Catherine drew a long breath. She was back on that 
narrow path, now. 

“And my hearing of yours?” she asked. 

“I told you about that offer several months ago.” 
Charles was dignified. “You seemed so little interested.” 

“Let’s not quibble!” Catherine exclaimed. “I can’t 
bear it. It’s bad enough—I was coming in to talk with 
you, when they rang. I hadn’t known”—she stared a 
moment; that was, after all, the dreadful sign-post, indi¬ 
cating their diverging roads—“that you considered that 
offer seriously.” 


230 


LABYRINTH 


“Exactly. But you will admit I had spoken of it?” 

Ah, he wouldn’t take that as parallel. His silence there 
was to be her fault, too. Only his cold, dead side toward 
me—Catherine had again that phantasy that he had swung 
in his orbit. If I go under now, it’s for all time. He 
must swing back to find me as I am, now. Pride poured 
through her, hardening in the mold of her intention. 

“I hadn’t spoken of this field work,” she said, clearly, 
“because I had to think it out first. Dr. Roberts offered 
me the opportunity a week ago. I did not suppose he 
took my assent for granted. Although he knows I 
couldn’t refuse it unless the work meant nothing to me.” 

“But what is it ? You-” 

Catherine explained. She was clear, hard, swift. 

“You have evidently made up your mind to go.” 

She nodded. 

“I can arrange things here so that the children will 
be cared for. And the house will run, just as when I am 
in town. It’s only for a month.” 

Charles got slowly to his feet, his mouth obdurate. 

“Charles, won’t you talk it over with me?” 

“I have nothing to say. You seem to lay aside your 
obligations lightly. But if you are content-” 

“Not lightly.” She shut her eyes against his face. 
One hand opened in a piteous little gesture of entreaty. 
If he should, even now, beg her to stay, wanting her, she 
would turn to water. “It has been difficult to decide.” 
She lifted her eyelids heavily. “You must see that it is 
a distinct advance.” 

“A feather in your cap.” Charles was sardonic. “And 
you must have feathers.” 

At that she rose, faint color coming into her white face. 




ENCOUNTER 


231 


“Yes, I think I must. I’m sorry you don’t like me— 
in feathers.” Her eyelids burned. “You would prefer, 
I suppose, dingy ostrich plumes that you had bought, 
years ago—like Mrs. Thomas’s.” 

“Mrs. Thomas may be a fool, but she’s a good woman.” 

“Oh!” Catherine set her lips against the echoing surge 
of laughter that rolled up. She wouldn’t let go again; 
she wouldn’t! 

“I mean she finds her feathers in her husband’s cap! 
Thomas is going ahead in great strides. Ask any of the 
men in college. And why? Because she is back of him, 
interested. A man has to feel there is some one interested 
in what he’s doing.” 

“And a woman doesn’t?” 

“You see! I say something, trying to explain my 
position, and at once you twist it into a comment on 
yourself.” 

Catherine retreated a step. Her glance winged about 
the quiet, pleasant room. That little table—they had 
found it in a Third Avenue store. “It smells like ma¬ 
hogany,” Charles had insisted. She could see it in the 
kitchen, newspapers spread under its spindle legs, and 
Charles scraping away at the old paint. Their house, 
built piece by piece. They had never had money enough 
for more than one chair at a time. And they had loved 
the building. Now—her glance included Charles, lower¬ 
ing, defensive, unhappy. 

“But I am concerned,” she said, “as much as ever. 
You should know that.” 

“No! You aren’t. I come home from class, and you 
aren’t here. I come home at night, from a committee 
meeting, and you’ve gone to sleep because you need to be 


232 


LABYRINTH 


fresh for your own work. This isn't complaining. I 
just want you to see how you’ve changed. Why, take 
this matter of the Buxton professorship. When I spoke 
of it, the one thing it meant to you was that you might 
have to leave New York. That’s all you could see in it. 
I haven’t been able to discuss it with you, although it 
might seem important.” 

Perhaps all that was true. Catherine felt a trickle of 
doubt through the solid wall of her intention. She had 
been tired—had she seemed indifferent, absorbed? In a 
wave of heat the trickle was consumed. She wanted to 
cry out, “It’s not with me that difference lies. It is in 
you! You wish to blame me, for your turning away— 
to Stella Partridge. You think I don’t know about that!” 

He moved uneasily, fidgetting with the painted silk 
shade of the table lamp. 

“All right,” she said brusquely. “We’ll leave it at that. 

I am self-absorbed. Selfish.” 

“I expected you would tire of it long before now,” 
said Charles. “Long hours in an office, at someone’s 
beck and*call. When you might be perfectly free to do 
as you please. I swear I don’t see what you get out 
of it.” 

“You don’t see, do you?” Catherine’s eyes were sud¬ 
denly piteous. “You don’t see at all.” 

“It’s evident enough that you can’t swing the two jobs, 
home and office. You’re worn out all'the time. Irritable.” 

“Oh!” Catherine’s hand pressed against her breast. 
Something extraordinary in his ingenuous construction 
of a case against her. 

“Now if you could earn more than I do, then I might 
stay home, give up my work. But you don’t. You barely 


ENCOUNTER 


233 

swing the additional expenses you incur. Sometimes I 
think I’ll accept the Buxton offer, just to take you—and 
the children—out of this city.” 

Catherine’s heart, under her cold fingers, stood still 
for a long moment and then broke into violent, irregular 
beating. 

“You would have to be sure”—she wondered if he 
could hear her words—“that I would go!” 

At that she hurried out of the room. She undressed 
in clumsy haste, and crawled into bed, where she shiv¬ 
ered, unable to relax, unable to stop the trampling of 
heavy thoughts through her mind. Charles came in, and 
went with elaborate unconcern about the business of going 
to bed. Her mind was a sling-shot, drawn tight to hurl 
at him innumerable bits of sentences, clattering stones 
from the ruck thrown off from what they had said. But 
she held them in, to rattle against her own brain. When 
he had turned off the light and was at last quiet in his 
own bed, the dark rose between them heavy, thick. She 
was aware, in a kind of torment, of his faintest motion. 

I must sleep, she thought. If I could shut off these 
thoughts! She twisted one arm up under her face, her 
mouth pressed hard on the cold flesh. 

Quite suddenly relief came, like a warm rush of air, 
blowing her empty of battering thoughts. She had a 
vague sense of something under the cluttered feelings, 
something hard, clear, shapely, a self distinct from love 
and hate and jealousy and fear. She drifted just over 
the edge of consciousness. She was lost in a vast, dark 
labyrinth, through which she stumbled, hands extended 
in search of passageways; on and on she labored. Had 
she touched that wall before? Was she going in blind 


234 


LABYRINTH 


circles, with no egress? She was running, desperately— 
sleep closed around her. 

IV 

Dr. Roberts came gravely around the desk, shook Cath¬ 
erine’s hand, and returned to his chair. 

“I must have been somewhat in doubt about your con¬ 
sent,” he said, “since I am so delighted. You must see 
Dr. Waterbury to-day.” 

“Just when do you think I should start?” Catherine 
sat erect, hard, bright triumph in her eyes. “Of course, 
there are various adjustments in my household to make.” 

“The end of the month. You’ll have this work in 
shape by that time.” Dr. Roberts jumped to his feet. 
“I’ll make that appointment with Waterbury myself. 
This is a good one on Smithson! He counted on your 
being merely half-hearted about the work.” He went 
briskly out. 

Catherine’s fingers moved idly among the pens and 
pencils on the tray. Behind her the winter sun made 
pale blotches on the floor. I’ve done it, she thought. 
It’s only the beginning! If I hang on, things may work 
out. A flashing picture of Charles at breakfast, dignified, 
reticent. Even that! She wondered a little at herself. 
It’s because I’ve found something beside feelings to live 
by, perhaps, and so I can endure feelings. I can wait. 

She brushed all that away, as with a quick gesture she 
pulled open the drawer and lifted out the pile of notes. 

Margaret telephoned. Would Catherine lunch that day 
with Amy and her ? At Amy’s luncheon club. Catherine 
made a note of the address. At quarter to one, sharp. 
Upstairs. We’ll meet you there. 


ENCOUNTER 


235 

They would be interested in her news. Approvingly 
interested. Discomfiting, how eagerly you ran to lap up 
little crumbs of approval. Get approval out of yourself, 
Henrietta had told her. Childish of her to crave it out¬ 
side herself. As if, some way, she had to make up for 
Charles, to throw something into the other side of the 
scale along with her own conviction. 

She wanted Margaret’s advice about shopping, too. 
New clothes. She would have to look her part. 

It was one o’clock when Catherine hurried along the 
side street, looking anxiously for the number Margaret 
had given her. The interview with the President had 
delayed her; it had left her in a state of pleasurable ex¬ 
citation, like the humming of many tiny insects. Across 
Madison Avenue. She came to a group of old gray build¬ 
ings, houses, with excrescenses of recent date on the 
ground floor,—a cleaning establishment—funny how you 
always saw clothes you liked in cleaners’ windows!—an 
interior decorator’s, with heavy tapestry draped over 
an amazing gilt chair. There, the entrance was just 
between those shops. Didn’t look much like a club. 
She climbed the stairs cautiously; a door above her opened, 
and two women came past her, sending her expectant 
glances, their voices sharp and bright against the con¬ 
fusion of sound into which she climbed. She stopped 
at the door, keenly self-conscious, as if the pattern of 
voices was complete, and her entrance might break 
through the warp. The pattern broke as she looked about 
the room, large and low, with separate nodules of women. 
Margaret’s bright head shot up from the group near the 
fireplace, and Margaret swung across the room toward 
her, slim and erect in her green dress. Amy strolled 


LABYRINTH 


236 

after her; she had removed her squirrel turban, but her 
dark hair still made a stiff flange about her thin face. 

“This is fine!” We’ve saved a table—” and Catherine, 
following them into the dining room, edging between the 
little tables, found herself drawn into the pattern of 
sound. 

“I’m sorry I am late.” She slipped her coat over the 
chair. “The President was talking to me”—she had 
to release some of the tiny, humming insects—“about 
my trip west.” She told them about that trip. It stepped 
forward out of dream regions into reality as she talked, 
as they put in questions, sympathetic, approving questions. 

“What does the King say?” Margaret smiled at her. 

“Oh, he doesn’t say much.” Catherine laughed. Why, 
she could joke about him! She felt a hard brilliance 
carry her along, as if—she sent little glances about the 
room, at the women near her—something homogeneous 
about them—unlike the girls at the St. Francis, still more 
unlike the woman who lunched at the Acadia, or at 
Huylers—something sufficient, individual—“What kind 
of a club is this, anyway?” 

“We wanted a place downtown here where we could 
have good food. All the lugs are in the kitchen. Wonder¬ 
ful cook!” Amy leaned across the table, her eyes afire. 
She could be intense over food, too, then! “A place 
where one might bring a guest. City Club too crowded, 
too expensive, too—too too! for independent women. 
There were eleven of us, originally. We called it the 
“Little Leaven,” you know. Now there are several 
hundred. All sorts. Writers, artists, editors. That’s a 
birth control organizer, and the woman with her is an 
actress. Anybody interesting comes to town, we haul 


ENCOUNTER 


237 

her in to speak in the evening. Men always have 
comfortable clubs. This is for us. ,, 

“Good food, certainly. ,, 

“I thought if you were interested, I’d put you up. For 
membership. The dues aren’t high, and now you are 
downtown, you might like to run in. Always someone 
here to lunch with, someone of your own kind.” 

Catherine smiled. Part of her was amused, but part 
of her shone, as if Amy’s intensity, admitting her to the 
leaven, polished that hard brilliance- 

“I’d like it!” she declared. “Lunching has been irk¬ 
some.” 

She watched the women again. They seemed less 
homogeneous, more individual, as she looked. 

“Well, I’ve been thinking about you.” Amy was 
directed at her with astonishing concentration. “Since 
I met you. What you need is more backing. You feel 
too much alone.” 

Catherine felt Margaret’s uneasiness, akin to her own 
faint shrinking from the access of personal probing. 

“You need, as I told Margaret the other night, to touch 
all these other women who have stepped out of their 
grooves. It’s wonderful, what that does for you. It’s 
solidarity feeling, workers go after it in their unions, 
and women so much lack it. You think you are making 

a solitary struggle, and you’re only part of all this-” 

Her sudden gesture sent her empty tumbler spinning to 
the edge of the table. Margaret’s quick hand caught it. 

“Don’t begin an oration, Amy,” she said. 

“It’s true.” Catherine was bewildered to find tears in 
her eyes, and a rush of affection toward Amy—she might 
be fanatic, but a spark from her overfanned fires could 




LABYRINTH 


238 

warm you! “Are any of these celebrities married?” 
she asked, with apparent irrelevance. 

“Oh—” Amy shrugged. “I think they have husbands, 
some of them. Hard to tell. That woman there has 
just got her divorce, I know.” 

She had a moment with Margaret later, standing near 
the fireplace, while Amy rushed off to greet a newcomer. 

“She’s a funny old dear, isn’t she?” Margaret was 
nonchalant. 

“I like her,” said Catherine. 

Margaret looked up in frank pleasure. 

“I hoped you would. She’s really fine, if you get her.” 
Her eyes, traveling across to the small figure in the fur 
coat, one arm raised in emphasis, were tender. “You’d 
roar if you heard her comments on Charles. She has 
a certain cosmic attitude toward all men, lumps them. 
I’m thrilled, Cathy, at your trip. And your salary! You 
show some pick-up on this job.” 

“Will you take me shopping for decent clothes?” 
Catherine regarded her sister wistfully. “I’m going to 
dress the old thing up for once.” 

“Will I! I’ve always wanted to.” 

V 

During the next weeks Catherine lunched frequently 
at Amy’s club. “You were quite right,” she told her one 
day. “I needed perspective. This place and these women 
make the whole business of my working seem matter of 
course. As if I’d be a fool not to. That’s a more com¬ 
forting feeling than my old one, that I might be only an 
egoistic pig.” 


ENCOUNTER 


239 


“That’s the trouble with ordinary married women,” 
declared Amy. “They are all shut up in separate 
cages, until they don’t have an idea what is happening 
outside.” 

“Marriage isn’t a cage, exactly.” 

“You just aren’t entirely out, yet.” 

“At least there is comfort in finding that other women 
want the same thing I want, and get it.” 

But marriage wasn’t a cage, she thought, later. She 
found herself not so much imprisoned as bewildered* 
It’s more like a labyrinth. There are ways out, if you 
can find them. Out, not of marriage itself, but out of 
the thing people have made of it—for women. 

Catherine knew, when she approached her mother with 
her plan, that she had need of perspective and assurance* 
But Mrs. Spencer’s comment was brief. 

“I suppose,” she said, “you must work this out for 
yourself. Yes, I can stay nights at your house. Alethea 
will be away all of February.” 

“Then it’s really a good scheme for you, too?” Cath¬ 
erine begged. 

“I’m a little too old to sit up with a croupy child.” 

“Letty’s too old for croup.” Catherine refused to look 
at her mother’s implication—that her children might be 
sick, might need her. “Of course, Miss Kelly and Mrs. 
O’Lay together can manage the household. There won’t 
be any burden for you. I thought you could have Spen¬ 
cer’s room, and he could have my bed.” 

She and Charles seemed to run on tangents which sel¬ 
dom crossed. A young assistant in Charles’s department 
had influenza, and in the handling of his work, Charles 
came in for an evening class. Frequent committee meet- 


240 


LABYRINTH 


ings, clinic affairs, kept him away on other evenings. 
Catherine would wake, to hear his cautious blunderings in 
the dark. He assumed that she slept, and she, fumbling 
for some noncommittal phrase of greeting, often lay quite 
still, not speaking. 

One mild, sunny day toward the end of January, Cath¬ 
erine came up from town on top of a bus. A little wind¬ 
blown and stiff, she hurried across the campus. In the 
dim tunnel behind the gymnasium she met Stella 
Partridge. 

‘‘Mrs. Hammond!” Stella halted just where the light 
through glass panels in a door made a charming picture 
of her pale face and close, dark furs. “It’s been so long 
since we have seen each other, and I wanted to congratu¬ 
late you on your—it is a promotion, isn’t it ? Dr. Ham¬ 
mond is so proud of you.” 

Catherine’s first thought was a flash of resentment that 
she had worn her shabby coat that morning, instead of 
the elegance Margaret had selected for her. How child¬ 
ish! she rebuked herself, as she said, 

“Thank you. It isn’t really a promotion. Just a dif¬ 
ferent phase of the work.” 

“It will be so nice for you, having the change.” 

She wants to detain me, to talk—Catherine found a 
myriad tiny buzzing thoughts, just out of reach—to show 
me that she knows all about it, from Charles. 

“I am sure I shall enjoy it.” She bent forward, her 
words suddenly out of her volition. “What a charming 
hand bag!” Her finger hovered above it; her eyes, 
swooping up to the cool dark eyes, were derisive. 

“Yes, isn’t it?” Miss Partridge’s smile was tolerant, 
amused, just a flicker of pointed teeth. But she thrust 


ENCOUNTER 


241 


the bag under her arm. “I hope you have a pleasant trip. 
You go soon, don’t you?” 

A' truck came booming through the tunnel, and under 
cover of its din, Catherine nodded and hurried on. 

“You knew she had it,” she cried out, half aloud. “You 
knew it!” At the gate she stopped, pretending to adjust 
her hat. She had known it, but the sight of it, the actual 
visible contact with it, had sent a sharp wave of nausea 
through her. How could she have spoken of it! She was 
aghast—the words had pounced out, she hadn’t said them. 
There, the nausea had passed, and with her head up to 
the wind which blew along the Avenue, she could go on, 
across the street, and up the hill toward home. She 
doesn’t love him. Catherine was sure of that. She 
wanted to show off—her power. That’s all. She has no 
tenderness in her. 

And as Catherine went silently past the door of the 
study where Charles sat writing, not looking up, pity 
moved in her. Why, she thought, he will be hurt, out 
of this, and I can’t save him. 

Henrietta came in that evening, and Charles emerged, 
ruffled and absent-eyed, from the study. He was working 
on a paper he was to deliver before a meeting of psy¬ 
chologists. On clinic practice, he explained in answer to 
Henrietta’s inquiry. “You know”—he slouched down 
in his chair—“we’re going to run you poor old-fashioned 
doctors right out of business. Once we have these psy¬ 
chological methods established, there won’t be much left 
for you to do.” 

“Whooping cough a mere instinct, or is it a habit? 
And croup and measles and broken legs?” Henrietta 


242 


LABYRINTH 


waved her eyeglasses at him. “If you psychologists knew 
a little anatomy and materia medica-” 

She and Charles squared off for a friendly skirmish 
on their pet field of contention. Catherine, listening, 
watching Charles’s lazy delight as he parried phrases and 
thrust out in pointed words, felt a sudden wash of tears 
too close to her eyes, and a constriction in her throat. He 
would come out of his tent, genial, casual, for Henrietta, 
for anyone. But when they were alone—silence, heavy 
and uncommunicative. How long since they had laughed, 
at any silly thing? 

“Here, help me out!” Henrietta was flushed with 
amusement. “He’s delivering his whole speech on my 
head! Oh, I mustn’t forget to give you Bill’s address.” 
She broke off, fumbling in a pocket of her suit. “Here. 
Chicago office. A note there will reach him. Aren’t you 
proud of her, Charles?” Henrietta stuck her glasses on 
the bridge of her nose and stared at Charles. “Just 
pouncing ahead!” 

“Of course Catherine has brains.” Charles had with¬ 
drawn, his foils sheathed. “Always knew that.” 

“But these Bureaus and Foundations are so conserva¬ 
tive. It’s splendid to see them forced into recognition of 
a woman’s ability, I think.” 

“Their men always seem a little—ladylike.” Charles 
was talking at Catherine, through Henrietta. “Perhaps 
none of them wished to make a tour of the west this 
time of year. It isn’t my idea of a good time, exactly,” 

“Don’t let him josh you, Catherine!” Henrietta flashed 
out, warmly. 

“Aren’t they ladylike ? Most of their men not creative 



ENCOUNTER 


243 


enough to make a real place for themselves. They crawl 
into that snug and safe berth-” 

“Eve thought the few Eve met were much like academic 
men.” Henrietta grinned at her thrust. “Haven’t you, 
Cathy?” 

“You see,” said Catherine, “Charles disapproves of the 
whole system, the establishment of a bureau.” 

“Some one accumulates too much money and looks 
around for a conspicuous benevolence. Ah, a bureau of 
investigation! Then some little men hurry in, get jobs 
poking their noses into various things, and draw down 
neat salaries out of the surplus money. Mrs. Lynch is 
pleased. Little men are pleased.” 

“Why isn’t it a good way to get rid of the money?” 
Henrietta spoke cautiously, as if she suspected traps 
under the smooth surface. 

“Oh, it gets rid of it. But it’s artificial. Not a re¬ 
sponse to some demand in society.” 

“Charles, are you stuck-up, or jealous?” Henrietta 
glanced shrewdly from him to Catherine. 

“This is not personal, I assure you.” Charles slipped 
into his grandiloquent, tolerant manner, as much as to 
add, “even if you, being a woman, can not understand its 
being impersonal.” 

“Urn. Aren’t universities endowed with some of this 
surplus cash, too?” 

“Only to some extent. There you have an actual 
need.” 

“In other words, the shoe is on the other foot, now.” 
Henrietta laughed. 

“It’s true enough there’s an actual need.” Catherine 



244 


LABYRINTH 


sat forward, eagerly. A sharp inner voice said: ridiculous 
to argue; he is attacking me, not the Bureau. Trying 
to belittle the thing I’m in, so that I’ll have to shrink 
with it. But the voice was drowned in an uproar of her 
refusal to shrink, her insistence upon some justification. 
“Universities and colleges are a need, of course. But 
the very thing I’m working on, and Dr. Roberts, too, is 
the great gap between the human need and the pitiful offer¬ 
ing on the part of the colleges. Why won’t it do some 
good, if we can show up that gap?” 

“What will happen? You’ll write a brochure, which 
won’t be read by any of the people concerned. Change 
comes from within, slowly, like growth of a child.” 

“In other words, Catherine, your job is foolishness, 
and you’d better be home making pies. You are too 
transparent, Charles. Don’t you listen to him!” Hen¬ 
rietta jumped to her feet. “I must run along. Pies are 
fleeting, too. If you’re interested in a thing, that’s all 
that counts.” 

Catherine rose, slowly. She wished Henrietta wouldn’t 
go. Her blunt indifference to undercurrents had a steady¬ 
ing effect. 

“Of course,” Catherine spoke hurriedly. She wanted 
to get to the bottom of this before Henry went. If 
there was a bottom. “Your interest depends upon your 
valuation of what you are doing, doesn’t it?” 

“Somewhat.” Henrietta paused. “But you know, you 
can knock a hole in the value of anything, if you try. I 
can shoot a doubt straight through doctoring. Why 
bother to mend people! Children—they just grow up 
to make blundering old folks.” She looked tired, as if 
the flesh of her cheeks and chin sagged. “But do I shoot 


ENCOUNTER 


245 

it? Not me. Same with your job, same with Charles’s 
job. May make a dent in the old world.” 

When she had gone, Catherine looked in at the door 
of the study. Charles presented a shoulder overintent. 
He knew she was there. To speak his name was like 
tugging at a great weight. 

“Charles.” He turned. The weight increased. “You 
really feel this work is just empty fiddling?” 

“There doesn’t seem much use in saying what I 
think ”—his emphasis pointed out the difference—“since 
it is taken as limited and personal.” 

Catherine retreated to her own room, before hasty, 
intemperate words escaped her. There was a cruel enough 
abyss between them now; no use to fill it with wreckage. 

VI 

The following morning, when Dr. Roberts came in 
with time tables and maps to help complete the itinerary, 
Catherine responded with apathy to the folders. She 
heard that doubt gnawing away, a mouse behind the 
wainscoting. Finally, as Dr. Roberts opened a new map, 
she let the mouse out. 

“What,” she asked, “exactly, do you think we are go¬ 
ing to accomplish? With the whole thing. Trip, book, 
all of it.” 

Dr. Roberts spread the thin map crackling on the 
desk, and pressed his forefinger into Ohio. Then he 
lifted his head, and his eyes, shrewdly penetrating, studied 
her face. 

“So-” he said. “It has lost its savor.” 

“Do you think we can change things, by criticism, or 



246 LABYRINTH 

suggestion? Won’t all these schools go on in their own 

way?” 

Dr. Roberts sat on the edge of the table, one neat toe 
pushed against the floor to balance himself, one 
swinging. 

“I’m glad this came up now, instead of somewhere in 
Ohio,” he said. “I suppose we all have hours of wonder¬ 
ing what it amounts to, all these mahogany desks and 
busy people.” He brought his fist down emphatically. 
“But I tell you, something must come of studies like 
this! Institutions have gone on long enough, nosing along 
with blind snouts in old ruts. The day has come when 
intellect, intelligence can step in and say, ‘here, that’s the 
wrong path. You’re going that way only because it is an 
old path. Here’s the better way.’ Conscious, intelligent 
control. That’s the coming idea.” 

“But can a blind snout open its eyes?” Catherine was 
intent, serious. “Can you change things? That way?” 

“See what Flexner’s study of medical schools did for 
them! Even Smithson’s few papers on sanitation have 
had an ordinance or two as a result. Where does all that 
agitation about child labor in the South come from, if not 
from investigation?” 

“You see—” Catherine looked down at the pink 
blotch of Ohio, under the firm, square forefinger. “I 
must believe in what I’m doing. I can’t just do it to earn 
a living.” 

“Naturally. I understand that.” 

“The work I did during the war was obviously of use. 
The plans for reeducation were fairly snatched out of our 
hands before the ink was dry on them.” 

“Yes. An immediate need like that is, as you say. 


ENCOUNTER 


247 

obvious. Easy to believe in. Like baking bread for hun¬ 
gry people.” 

“I carried over that belief to the Bureau as a whole, 
I think. Then—I suppose from criticism that I heard— 
I wondered whether we fooled ourselves.” 

“I think not, Mrs. Hammond. Perhaps our report 
won’t revolutionize the whole educational system of sev¬ 
eral states overnight. You don’t expect that. But it 
may affect even a single man, and that’s something.” He 
stroked his beard, watching her a little anxiously. “There 
is just one criticism which has bothered me,” he added. 
“That concerns policy. After all”—his wave indicated 
the Bureau, established, respectable, heavily done in ma¬ 
hogany—“biting the hand that feeds us, you know. We 
may be tied too firmly to the social forces that make this 
possible. I don’t know. What I offer myself for conso¬ 
lation is this: there’s no such thing as complete freedom. 
If we can clear away any of the debris and old pitfalls in 
education, we may at least leave the next generation less 
obstructed. We are no more limited in policy than 
churches or colleges. We don’t have to lick the hand that 
feeds us, at any rate.” 

“Well—” Catherine smiled. “I won’t be doubtful, 
then. I want to be enthusiastic.” 

And as Dr. Roberts returned to the study of the maps 
and time tables, she thought: he may be right, and 
Charles may be right. Each of them thinks from his own 
center. From his own desires. So do I. And I want 
this work to have a meaning. To be significant. To 
matter. I believe it does. I will believe in it. 


248 


LABYRINTH 


VII 

Saturday afternoon Catherine stood in front of the 
long mirror in her bedroom, with Margaret squatting on 
her heels beside her, pinning in place a band of bright 
embroidery. 

“Too bad there isn’t time to send it back.” Margaret 
dropped to the floor, gazing up at her sister. “But that 
will do, I think. It’s very smart, Cathy.” 

“Can we pack it so that it won't crush?" Catherine 
brushed her fingers over the warm brown duvetyn. “I 
scarcely recognize myself.” 

“It’s the way you should look all the time. Take it 
off and I’ll put a stitch in where that pin is.” Margaret 
scrambled to her feet. “I did want you to have that 
beaver coat, though.” 

“I’ve got to pay for these sometime!” Catherine slipped 
out of the dress. “You beguiled me into awful ex¬ 
travagance.” 

“Just because I made you buy with a near eye instead 
of a far eye.” Margaret sewed busily. “The middle- 
class married eye is a far eye, Cathy. It never sees clothes 
as they are. It sees how they'll look three years hence, 
and then five years, made over. No wonder you look 
dubby. Can’t ever get style that way.” She snapped her 
thread, and folded the dress over tissue paper. “There, 
that’ll ride. Taking just your steamer trunk?” 

“And a bag.” Catherine pulled her nasturtium silk 
kimono over her shoulders. “Too many stops for a large 
trunk. It’s good of you to spend your Saturday here. 
I’d sent off everyone, so that I could get ready in peace. 
But there are endless things to see to.” 


ENCOUNTER 


249 

“You’re a handsome thing in that rag, too.” Margaret 
rose from the half full trunk. “Wish I’d found an eve¬ 
ning dress that color.” 

“That would have been nice and inconspicuous! And 
I may not need one. I’ll stick this black one in.” There 
was a faint glow on Catherine’s cheeks; her dark hair 
swept in a long curve from brow to heavy coil at the 
nape of her smooth neck. 

“Where are the children?” Margaret seized the black 
dress and folded it dexterously. 

“At the opera—‘Hansel and Greteld Mother took 
them. Miss Kelly has Letty in the park.” 

“Won’t they love it!” Margaret whistled the gay little 
dance melody from the opera. “Do they mind your 
going?” 

“Marian thinks it will be rather fun to have Gram 
here. Spencer wants to go with me.” 

“The lamb! There, those are properly packed. You 
be careful when you take them out. Now, shoes. No, 
put that blouse in your handbag.” 

“I declare—” Catherine laughed as Margaret moved 
competently through the piles. “It’s like a trousseau— 
my second.” 

“That would please the King, I’m sure.” Margaret 
held off a bronze slipper, turning it critically. “Is he as 
sulky as he acts, Cathy? He said, ‘I don’t demand ex¬ 
ternal evidence to make me proud of my wife!’ ” She 
imitated the dignified resentment of his tone. 

“He’s frightfully busy with papers and things.” Cath¬ 
erine bent over her traveling bag. In her throat a soft 
pulse beat disturbingly. To-night—she thought. Oh, I 
can’t leave him—obdurate, silent. I must break through. 


250 


LABYRINTH 


“Um.” Margaret nodded. Then, suddenly, “I told 
Mother I thought she had no business siding with him.” 

Catherine faced her, alarmed. 

“And she as much as said she thought you were en¬ 
dangering your home and future happiness. Poor 
mother! She can’t step out of her generation, I suppose. 
For all she is such a brick.” 

“Don’t put anything into her head, for goodness’ sake! 
She’s going to be here while I’m gone. She’s fond of 
Charles.” 

“The only trouble with Charles,” declared Margaret, 
her arms akimbo on her slim hips, “is that he is a man!” 

“You sound like Amy.” 

“No, I don’t. I know he can’t help it. You’re to 
blame, partly. You spoiled him rotten for years-. He 
can’t get over it in a jiffy. Has that woman got her 
claws in him? I suppose he’s wide open to a vamp.” 

Catherine’s color receded in the swift tautening of her 
body. Margaret need not trample in. “I don’t know,” 
she said, stiffly. 

“Excuse me, old thing.” Margaret flung her arm over 
Catherine’s shoulders, and rubbed her warm cheek against 
her sister’s. “Rude of me, I know. We’ll change the 
subject.” 

“I didn’t mean to be sniffy.” Catherine softened. “I 
really don’t know. I was shocked that you-” 

“Um. What are my eyes for, little Red Riding Hood? 
Anyway, it’s a darned skilful move of yours, this trip.” 

Down the hall clumped Mrs. O’Lay. Catherine hurried 
into her old serge dress, Margaret locked and strapped 
the little trunk, and Catherine closed the traveling bag. 
“Have to finish that to-morrow.” 



ENCOUNTER 


251 


Miss Kelly came, with Letty. Margaret carried the 
child off into the dining room for her supper, while 
Catherine sat down with Miss Kelly for a final discussion 
of the weeks she would be gone. “Eve made out this 
mailing list—” she finished, “and bought enough postal 
cards to last. If you would send me one every night—” 
She gazed at the sandy-fringed, calm blue eyes, at the 
firm, homely mouth. “I’m sure they will be happy and 
well, with you.” 

“I think so, Mrs. Hammond.” Not a quaver of un¬ 
easiness in her voice. 

You might suppose I went off every week, thought 
Catherine. 

Letty was in bed, Margaret had gone, and Miss Kelly, 
before Mrs. Spencer and the children arrived. Catherine 
listened to their delighted rehearsing of the story. Marian 
tried to hum one of the songs; Catherine couldn’t recall 
the exact melody. And under the outer pressure ran the 
slow, warm flood of waiting, waiting until Charles should 
come in. What she could say or do she did not know. 
But anything, anything! 

“Will I serve up the soup, Mrs. Hammond?” Mrs. 
O’Lay was reproachful. “It’s half after six.” 

“Mr. Hammond should be in any minute.” 

The telephone shrilled into her waiting. 

“That you, Catherine? I’m at the dentist’s. Got a 
devil of a toothache. Don’t wait for me. He’s out at 
dinner, but he’s coming in to see to the tooth. No, it’s 
that upper tooth, where the filling was loose.” 

They dined without Charles. 

“Poor fellow!” Mrs. Spencer was gently sympathetic. 
“There’s nothing so upsetting as the toothache.” 


252 


LABYRINTH 


Some truth in that, thought Catherine, as she sat in 
Charles’s chair and served. A special dinner, too. If 
the tooth still ached when he came home— The in¬ 
tangible hope which had grown in her through the day 
was too fragile to withstand such disaster. Perhaps— 
was he at the dentist’s? Was there an aching tooth? 
She glanced up in a flurry of guilt at a question from 
her mother. How despicable of her, dropping into sus¬ 
picion. Spencer was watching her. He was too sen¬ 
sitized, too immediately aware of moods. It would be 
good for him, perhaps, to live without her for a time. 
She brushed away the under-thoughts, and held herself 
resolutely above the surface of their talk. 

Marian wanted to play Hansel and Gretel. “But Gram 
is too nice to be the witch, isn’t she, Muvver? And we 
must have a witch.” 

“Miss Kelly could be witch,” said Spencer. 

“She’s too nice, too!” 

“She could pretend not to be.” Spencer peered at 
Catherine, and suddenly giggled. 

“That isn’t funny,” protested Marian. 

“When your mother was a little girl,” began Mrs. 
Spencer, “I took her to see Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” The 
children listened, entranced, to the account of Catherine’s 
impersonation of Little Eva. Catherine, amused, went 
back to Spencer’s giggle. He hadn’t accepted Miss Kelly, 
as Marian had. His laugh was a secret declaration of his 
withholding of himself. But he no longer protested out¬ 
wardly. 

“And just then, I went out of the kitchen door,” said 
Mrs. Spencer, “and saw Catherine in the loft window of 
the barn. She had on one of my best white sheets, and 


ENCOUNTER 


253 

she was leaning forward, way out of the window, and 
waving her arms.” 

“Oh, Muvver!” Marian sighed in delight. 

“I said, ‘What are you doing!’” 

“You tell us what you said, Muvver,” begged Marian, 
her eyes darkly shining. “Please.” 

“I said”—Catherine laughed—“that I was going to fly 
to Heaven.” 

“Did you think you were, Mother?” asked Spencer. 

“Perhaps. I was playing Little Eva so hard that I 
expected the angels to pick me up, you know.” 

“An’ then, Gram?” 

“I called to the hired man. He was in the barn. And 
he ran upstairs up the ladder and caught your mother by 
the sheet. So she didn’t jump out.” 

“Would you really of jumped, Mother?” Spencer, in 
his eagerness, came around to Catherine’s chair. 

“I don’t know. I was a silly little girl, wasn’t I ?” 

“Oh, Spencer was silly to-day,” cried Marian. “He 
wanted to come home right in the middle of the play. He 
said you were going away to-day, and Gram had to take 
right hold of his arm.” 

A wave of color rushed up to Spencer’s hair, and his 
nostrils trembled. 

“Wasn’t that silly?” 

“I did think so, Mother.” He gulped. “I got mixed 
up. If you think so, it feels true, doesn’t it?” 

“We told him it wasn’t to-day. But he kept thinking 
so.” 

Catherine remembered the dash he had made through 
the hall to her bedroom, his halt at the door, his long 
stare at her. Poor boy! 


254 


LABYRINTH 


“You better sit down, son,” she said. “Here comes 
dessert.” 

Later, when she bade them good night, his arms tight¬ 
ened about her neck. 

“You said to-morrow,” he whispered, “and I thought 
maybe it was to-morrow. Because to-morrow is to-day, 
always, when it gets here.” 

“We can write letters to each other,” said Catherine, 
rubbing her cheek softly against his hair. “Won’t that be 
fun? We never wrote to each other.” 

“With my own name on the envelope?” 

“Yes, sir.” Catherine felt him relax into pleased con¬ 
templation of envelopes with his own name. 

“It’s queer Charles doesn’t come.” Mrs. Spencer laid 
aside her magazine as Catherine entered the living room. 
“Do you know what dentist he goes to?” 

“Dr. Reeves, I think. He had to wait until the doctor 
came in from dinner.” 

“Oh, yes.” Mrs. Spencer ruffled her fingers through 
the pages. “Alethea went on Thursday,” she said. “I’ll 
be glad to move in here. It’s rather queer, staying alone.” 

“I am glad you want to come.” Catherine was grate¬ 
ful. “It relieves me of any anxiety. Things should run 
smoothly.” 

“Spencer was quite pitiful.” Mrs. Spencer looked like 
an inquisitive little bird. “He’s rather hard to manage. 
Notional. Marian seems more normal.” 

“She is more phlegmatic than Spencer.” Catherine 
refused to take up that word, “pitiful,” and its im¬ 
plications. 

“They’re both sweet children. They act well-bred 
in public. It’s a pleasure to take them out. Even when 


ENCOUNTER 


255 


Spencer was so distressed, he didn’t make himself con¬ 
spicuous. And when I promised him you’d really be 
here, he settled down again.” 

Catherine again rejected the distress. She wouldn’t 
argue with her mother about going away. Too late, 
now. 

“Miss Kelly is very good with them, I think,” she 
said. “She gives them better training than I ever did. 
I suppose she sees them more impersonally. Even 
Letty-” 

“I don’t think anyone trains children better than their 
mother.” Mrs. Spencer was indignant. “You always 
did very well. Miss Kelly does seem competent, of 
course.” 

A sharp ring at the bell brought Catherine to her 
feet. Perhaps Charles had forgotten his key. But as 
she hurried down the hall, she heard a shrill guffaw from 
Sam, and the elevator slid rapidly out of sight as she 
opened the door. 

“Why, Flora! Come in.” 

Flora, hastening to drag a lugubrious expression over 
the wide grin Sam had evidently provoked, shook her 
head, the stiff purple flowers on her large hat rattling 
like hail. 

“No’m, I ain’t coming in,” she said. “I came to ask 
a favor of you, Mis’ Hammond. You well, and the 
children?” 

“Yes, we’re all well.” Catherine recalled the dejected, 
bruised Flora she had last seen. Bruises and dejection 
had vanished; Flora was resplendent in a spotted yellow 
polo coat, a brilliantly striped scarf displayed over one 
shoulder, and—Catherine almost laughed aloud—arctics, 



LABYRINTH 


256 

flapping about plump white silk-stockinged legs. But 
she was uneasy; the olive-whites of her eyes shone, and 
her gold tooth flashed. 

“Mis’ Hammond, you knows what I done told you, 
about that worthless puhfessional man.” She thrust her 
hands deep into her pockets, trying to swagger a little. 
“You recollects? I don’ want to bother you, but he’s the 
worstest man. He’s tryin’ to ruin my character.” 

“I thought you had him put in prison.” 

“Yessum. But he’s bailed out. An’ the case is post¬ 
poned, while he works against me. He’s provin’ that I 
was bad, and let my li’l girl run wild. They shut her up.” 
Flora scrambled for a handkerchief, and rubbed vigor¬ 
ously at her eyes. “My lawyer fr’en, he says if I can 
get proof about my character, then that man won’t stand 
no trial. He tole me to get a proof from you, Mis’ Ham¬ 
mond. You know I worked hard, don’t you?” 

“What kind of proof, Flora? There, don’t cry. Of 
course I’ll help you.” 

“My lawyer fr’en, he says you should write it out 
about me. A kinda paper, all about how I done work 
for you. With your name and where you lives on it. 
Then you don’ have to come to court, you just writes 
it down on a paper.” 

“Come in, Flora, and I’ll write something for you.” 

“No'm, I’se going to stand right here.” 

“Wait, then.” 

Catherine wrote a brief, emphatic statement. She had 
employed Flora Lopez for three years, and always found 
her reliable, competent, hard working. What do I really 
know about her, she thought, her pen poised at the end 
of that sentence. Character—she saw again that neat, 


ENCOUNTER 


257 

respectable flat, eloquent of Flora’s ambition, and the 
little boy. She is a self-respecting woman, who has sup¬ 
ported herself and her children. 

“Just Flora, that former maid of mine,” she told her 
mother. “Wants a recommendation.” 

“There you are.” She handed the sheet to Flora. 

“But Mis’ Hammond, my lawyer fr’en, he say you 
have to get a notary seal onto it, or it ain’t good in court.” 
She stared at the writing. “You could mebbe send it by 
mail to me. I moved to a new place. Folks in that house 
were too nosy. I’m at-” 

“I’m going away to-morrow, for a month.” Catherine 
hesitated. “I tell you, we’ll go find a notary to-night. 
There are several along the Avenue, if it isn’t too 
late.” 

Her mother agreed, rather doubtfully, to wait until 
she returned, unless Charles came in the meantime. 

“I don’t think you ought to go out with that colored 
woman this time of night,” she insisted. 

But Catherine, hurrying into coat and hat, was off. 
The notary in the tobacco shop at the corner had gone 
home. After a cold, slipping walk on sleeted streets to 
Broadway and down, Catherine found another shop, and 
a man who could put a seal to her oath. 

Flora folded the paper. She refused to put it in her 
pocket. 

“I got to get it safe to my lawyer fr’en,” she insisted. 
“I is obliged to you, Mis’ Hammond.” She turned her 
homely, dark face passionately toward Catherine, her 
wide mouth moving grotesquely as she spoke. “Mos’ 
folks is cruel mean to you if your luck is bad! Women 
are the mostest mean. Sayin’ I neglects my chile——all 



LABYRINTH 


258 

’count of my being a good worker. You got somebody 
to work for you now?” 

“Mrs. O’Lay, the janitor’s wife. You remember her? 
She can’t cook as you could. Mr. Hammond doesn’t 
eat a meal without wishing you were back.” 

“I—I jus’ couldn’t come back, Mis’ Hammond. I’se 
obliged to you, but-” 

“Are you working somewhere?” 

“Washings, at home. I ain’t making so much money. 
But my lawyer fr’en, he ain’t charging me but half 
rates.” 

“Do you need money?” Catherine’s hand moved 
toward her pocket book. 

“I’se too much obliged, Mis’ Hammond, to need it.” 
She looked away, and suddenly darted out across the 
street, her arctics flapping, her dirty yellow coat flopping 
about her awkward flight. 

Catherine went home, stepping gingerly over the glare 
of ice. A taxi rattled and skidded to a stop at the door 
just as she reached the apartment house, and her mother 
came out. 

“Here, you’ll slip.” Catherine seized her arm, and 
engineered her passage. “Has Charles come home?” 

“Yes, poor boy. He’s had an awful time. Tell the 
driver to go very slowly!” Mrs. Spencer disappeared in 
the cab. 


VIII 

“’At Flora, she coming back to wuk for you-all?” 
Sam made friendly inquiry as he stopped the elevator 
at Catherine’s floor. 



ENCOUNTER 


259 


“No.” 

“She say she got grand job for some elegant folks. 
Sma’t worker, Flora is.” 

Poor Flora—Catherine unlocked the door quietly— 
lying to Sam, to save her face some way, of course. 

If Charles is miserable—hope thrust out a new tendril, 
waveringly, in a blurred picture of herself ministering 
to him, pretending tenderly that nothing ever had been 
wrong. 

“Hello.” She smiled as he turned from the window, 
draped in a melancholy air of pain nobly borne. “You 
have had a horrid time, haven’t you?” 

“Just a jumpy tooth.” He sat down, reaching for the 
paper. “Your mother was worried about you. Said you 
went off with a darky hours ago.” 

“She didn’t seem worried. I met her at the door.” 
Catherine went out to the hall closet with her wraps. Her 
fingers brushed the sleeve of his heavy coat. If I can 
pretend, she thought. 

“It was only Flora,” she said as she returned. “She 
wanted a statement from me, evidence as to her character. 
That man, you remember, her puhfessional gentleman? 
He seems to have a scheme to save himself at her ex¬ 
pense. We went out to hunt up a notary.” 

“You committed yourself legally to some defense of 
her?” 

“Yes, indeed. Poor Flora!” 

“Unwise, wasn’t it? How do you know what she’ll 
do with such a paper?” 

“It seemed little enough to do for her. They want 
to prove she neglected her children.” 

“Didn’t she?” 


26 o 


LABYRINTH 


Catherine wondered; did he mean that implied com¬ 
parison? At least he wouldn’t drag it out, openly, if she 
ignored it. 

“Have you had any dinner?” 

“Can’t eat with a nerve howling like a fiend.” 

“Come along, poor boy. I’ll find you something.” 

“Don’t bother.” 

“Come on, Charles.” Catherine went into the kitchen. 
“Here’s a wonderful roast beef,” she called back, and 
Charles came reluctantly. “You sit there—” she pushed 
the chair near the shining white table. “Coffee, or 
cocoa?” 

“Cocoa, if it isn’t too much trouble. I’d like to sleep. 
Had a cup of coffee.” 

“Did the dentist keep you all this time in his torture 
chamber?” Catherine moved swiftly from ice-chest to 
stove. If I can invoke our midnight lunches, all down 
the past, she thought—I can’t go away, without trying 
to reach him. It is like death. 

“No,” said Charles. “I haven’t been there all the 
evening.” 

Catherine stirred the foaming cocoa. Let’s pretend, 
she wanted to cry out; let’s pretend! 

“I thought probably you would be asleep. Since you 
start off to-morrow.” 

“I wanted to see you.” Catherine poured the cocoa 
and set it before him. She stood there, one hand spread 
delicately, the fingers pressed against the oilcloth. “And 
you—didn’t want to see me, did you!” She was sup¬ 
plicating, provocative, leaning above him. 

“I had to stop with some manuscript, at Miss Part¬ 
ridge’s.” Charles buttered a slice of bread deliberately, 


ENCOUNTER 


261 


and forked a slice of pink meat to his place. “Is there 
any Worcestershire?” 

“And she gave you coffee?” Catherine moved hastily 
away from the table, and felt blindly along the cupboard 
shelf for the bottle of sauce. 

“Yes.” Charles was blandly engrossed in his lunch. 

He’s as much as telling me that he chose to go to her, 
when he wished comfort. Catherine set the Worcester¬ 
shire beside his plate. I won’t hear him. But what a 
burlesque, my serving him, when I can’t, through any 
outer humility, reach him. 

“Want more sugar?” She asked, casually. 

“No. This is fine.” His upward glance was puzzled, 
uneasy. 

Ah, I have no pride, no decency! she cried to herself. 
Her heart was beating in suffocating rhythm; her fingers 
lifted, undirected, aching for the touch of that stubborn, 
beloved head—the prominent temples, the hollow above 
the cheekbones, the old intimate brushing across his eyes, 
down to cup his strong, obdurate chin. 

“Charles,” she whispered, and swayed backward from 
his sudden violent start, which clattered the carving knife 
to the floor. 

“Damn!” he clapped his hand to his jaw. “Oh, damn!” 

“What is it?” 

“That tooth. Hell, I’ve yanked that filling out.” He 
was on his feet, his face contorted under his hand. “Get 
me some iodine. He said iodine would stop it.” 

The tooth was treated. Charles, a little sheepishly, 
admitted that the pain was less. 

“Guess I’ll crawl right into bed, before it jumps again. 
If I can get to sleep-” 



262 LABYRINTH 

Catherine filled a hot-water bag and slipped it under 
his cheek. 

“That feels fine.” He looked up at her. “Thanks.” 

Catherine bent quickly and brushed her lips on his 
forehead. 

“Good night,” she said steadily. “Go right to sleep.” 

She lay wakeful for a long time. 

“When I come back,” she thought, at last— She 
twisted restlessly. “That tooth—I was a little mad, and 
it destroyed my frenzy. I ought to be glad, and I’m not.” 

The hours on Sunday between breakfast and time for 
her train were telescoped into a band of pressure. Direc¬ 
tions to Mrs. O’Lay; final arrangements for her mother; 
engrossing details devouring the few hours. 

The taxi was announced. Letty burst into wails be¬ 
cause she couldn’t go; she had been discovered busily 
emptying her bureau drawers into an old suitcase. Cath¬ 
erine, distracted, kissed her mother and hurried away, 
hearing the determined shrieks until the elevator reached 
the ground floor. Charles, Spencer, and Marian climbed 
into the taxi after her. 

“You look lovely,” said Marian, over and over, strok¬ 
ing the soft fur at the throat of her jacket. “You look 
just lovely.” 

Spencer snuggled close against her, without a word. 
Charles, after a businesslike inquiry into the state of her 
tickets, was silent. And Catherine’s one clear thought 
was: it is lucky that I can’t escape now—like a moving 
stairway, and I’ve stepped squarely on it. I couldn’t, to¬ 
day, furnish the energy, the motive power, to go and 
leave them. 


PART V 


IMPASSE 







PART V 


IMPASSE 

I 

Catherine moved slowly up the covered stairway from 
the Randolph Street station, sniffing at the strange smell 
of Chicago. What did make it so different from New 
York? Smoke, blown whirling back in the sharp east 
wind over the grinding of ice along the lake shore, some¬ 
thing more composite than that, which, if she could but 
decipher, would give her the essential difference between 
the cities. She snatched at her hat, as she reached the 
gusty platform. There was Bill, lounging against the 
paper stand! As she edged through the home-bound 
crowd, he saw her, with a sharp lifting of his negligent, 
withdrawn look, and started toward her. 

“Catherine!” He drew her out of the crowd, into a 
little corner protected by the booth. 

“What a horrid place I made you wait!” Pleasure 
shimmered over Catherine, like sun in shallow water. 
“Have you had to stand here long? Oh, it is nice to see 
you!” The strange city, the unknown, hurrying people, 
walled them about in deepened intimacy. 

“Fine.” Bill smiled down at her. “You look as if you 
had been eating up this west, and liked its taste.” 

“I have. I do.” Soft, clear brilliance in her eyes, 

265 


266 


LABYRINTH 


in her smile. “Let’s go somewhere, so I can tell you 
about it. I want to talk and talk.” 

“There’s a place just north of here. Would you like 
to walk? A little place I found. Wonderful dinners. Or 
if you want to celebrate, we can go to some huge hotel.” 

“I don’t care. Let’s try your little place.” 

They walked swiftly along the Avenue, the lake wind 
whipping against them, Bill answering Catherine’s ran¬ 
dom questions about the gaunt, dark buildings they passed, 
about his work. 

“I’m chattering,” she thought. “I don’t care!” 

“Here we are.” Bill’s hand under her elbow guided 
her into the doorway of a small white building. 

“Wall papers,” read Catherine from the hall sign, but 
Bill steered her to an opposite door. 

“Oh, I do like it.” She nodded at Bill’s fleet, anxious 
query. 

A long, irregular room, with scattered tables, dull gray 
enamel, shining in the soft orange light of small lamps, 
and a great brick fireplace where logs burned. 

“Sit here, where you can watch the fire without scorch¬ 
ing.” Bill chose a table in a small alcove. “Now tell 
us all about it. Have you been made president of one 
of these colleges? Or endowed? You look amazingly 
triumphant.” 

“Do I strut?” Catherine laughed softly, slipping out 
of her coat, drawing off her gloves. 

“Not quite. But—you could, couldn’t you?” 

“I’ve had a wonderful time, Bill. Incredibly won¬ 
derful!” 

“And you haven’t been lonely, or homesick? How 
long since you left New York?” 


IMPASSE 


267 

“More than two weeks. Pve finished Illinois. That’s 
why I’m here to-night. I go on to Ohio at midnight. 
Homesick? Should I be ashamed not to be? The first 
day or so, I felt guilty. And I woke up at night, thinking 
I heard Spencer cry out in his sleep, or Letty. Now I 
just sleep like a baby—or a spinster.” 

“Henrietta wrote me that they are all O.K. Had a note 
this morning.” 

“She wrote me, too. Nice old thing, to drop in on 

them. I do miss them of course. But-” She looked 

up, a wistful shadow across her eyes. “Bill, I had for¬ 
gotten how much time there really was in a day. When 
you could go straight ahead, just doing the things you 
had planned. Doing one job. You said I’d have two 
jobs, didn’t you? These last weeks Pve had one. And 
I love it! Not forever, of course. But for this month. 
I feel like a person. Sometimes, almost like a personage! 
People have been very kind, and interested.” 

She was silent as Bill turned to consult with the 
waitress; for a moment her eyes lingered on his head, 
dark and gaunt against the firelight, and then looked 
away at the groups of diners. Early yet, Bill had 
said. 

“Well ?” Bill watched her. “What a charming gown— 
like an Indian summer.” 

“Margaret selected it.” Catherine stretched one arm 
along the table, the loose sleeve of golden brown velvet 
falling softly away from the firm ivory of her wrist. “I 
was doubtful about the color.” 

“You needn’t be.” 

“She bullied me into all sorts of lugs.” Catherine 
laughed. “And I’ve been glad of it.” She hovered de- 



268 LABYRINTH 

lightedly over the tray of hors-d’oeuvres. “Like a flower 
garden!” 

“A woman runs this place,” remarked Bill with ap¬ 
parent irrelevance. 

“Down in a little southern Illinois town, the wife of 
one of the college faculty wants to start a tea room. She 
told me all about it. Her husband doesn’t want her to. 
She says she supposes it isn’t very high brow. You 
know, Bill”—Catherine clasped her hands at the edge of 
the table—“It’s happening everywhere. Women are just 
busting out. That’s been what they've wanted to know 
about me. How I manage it. It’s pitiful, their eager¬ 
ness. Even their husbands. I went out to dinner one 
night, and the thing the college president wanted to 
know was all about how I managed. How many people 
it took to fill my place, and all the rest. I expected to be 
told in so many words that I ought to be home with my 
children.” 

“And you haven’t?” 

“Indirectly, sometimes. But even the most righteous 
mothers crave information. How do I manage! It’s 
extraordinary. It may have gone to my head. Like 
strong drink. I know I’m talking too much. But, Bill, 
you’ve boiled me over, all this brew, and I have to talk!” 

“I like it.” 

“You see—” Catherine glanced up doubtfully. “I 
can’t write to Charles. It sounds too much like crow¬ 
ing.” She fingered her soup spoon. She wanted to talk 
about Charles, too. Bill would understand. Those brief, 
impersonal notes of his: he was well, he was working 
on his book, he was busy with semester finals, the chil¬ 
dren were well, yours, Charles. 


IMPASSE 269 

“You never saw Charles’s mother, did you?” asked 
Bill. 

“No.” Catherine waited. Bill was never random in 
his associations. 

“He’s told you about her, of course?” 

“Lots of times. She was devoted to him, wasn’t she? 
You knew her?” 

“We lived next door for years, you know. She died 
just as Charles went to college. His father had died years 
earlier. Just enough income for comfort, and just 
Charles. I think”—he grinned a little—“that you’ll have 
to train Charles as long as she did, before he can fully 
appreciate your career.” 

“But that was years ago.” 

“Yes. But—I think I can tell you this, without viola¬ 
tion—Charles told me once, talking of you before I had 
met you, that to him you were the perfect woman, like 
his mother. Which meant—tender, loving, and devoted.” 

Catherine’s spoon clicked against the soup plate. Her 
eyelids were suddenly heavy, weighted with memories. 
Charles had said that to her, years ago. A cold finger 
touched her heart, binding it, and she knew, through all 
the brimming delight of the past days, how she had hidden 
away the troubling thought of Charles. 

“I don’t mean that she spoiled him grossly,” Bill was 
saying. “She was too New England, too much what 
we used to call a gentlewoman for that. Charles was 
simply the center of her life; his welfare, his desires, 
his future—those things set the radius of her circle. She 
had nothing else, you see. Except the idea”—the corners 
of Bill’s mouth rose in his slow smile—“that since 
Charles was a man, he was a superior being. Did women 


2JO 


LABYRINTH 


really think that, Catherine? Or was that a concession 
they knew they could easily afford to make?” 

“But Charles doesn’t think men are superior.” Cath¬ 
erine’s smile was uncertain, begging for assurance. “Why, 
those early experiments of his, the brochures he published, 
were directed against that very superstition.” 

“Yes. Intellectually he has come a long way since those 
early days. But that matters so much less than we like 
to think.” 

Catherine waited while the waitress served the next 
course. Bill’s words had evoked a thought clearly from 
the churning within her; she held it until the waitress 
had gone, and then spoke, 

“You mean, exactly, that he wishes my radius to be 
his desires, his welfare, his future?” 

“That’s his old pattern. Bound to hang on, Catherine. 
Because it is so flattering, so pleasant. Isn’t it what we 
all wish, anyway? Someone living within our limits?” 

“Perhaps men wish it.” 

“You think women don’t?” 

“Do they?” Catherine shook her head. “I don’t 
want Charles to have nothing but me in his life. Aren’t 
women hardier? Since they’ve never had that—It is a 
sort of human sacrifice, isn’t it? Men are like vines! Did 
you know vines wouldn’t grow well, some of them, unless 
you sacrifice to them? Bones and flesh. ‘If you have an 
old hen,’ said the nursery man, when I asked him about 
our Actinidia in Maine, ‘bury her close to the roots. Then 
the vine will shoot up.’ And it did!” 

“You would make over the old saying about sturdy 
oaks, wouldn’t you?” 

“Don’t make fun of me. Perhaps I can discover 


IMPASSE 


271 

something which will change the world!” She stared 
intently at Bill. “You—” she hesitated. “You live with¬ 
out that human sacrifice, Bill. You aren’t an Actinidia.” 

“And so, perhaps, I know why men wish it.” Bill 
pushed to one side his untouched salad. “Without any 
question now of its fairness or justice to women like 
Henrietta, or you. In the first place, it is convenient, 
practically so; smooths down all the details of living. 
But especially, it drops a painted screen between man 
and the distressing futility of his life. A man with a 
family and a regular wife, old style, doesn’t often have 
to face his own emptiness. He feels important. He hur¬ 
ries around at his work, and if doubt pricks a hole in 
that screen, the picture painted there is intricate enough 
to hide the hole. He has something to keep his ma¬ 
chinery in action. If by day his little ego is deflated, 
there is, to change my figure, free air at home to blow 
him full again.” 

“You sound as if you thought all wives were adoring 
and humble,” said Catherine. 

“Some of them used to be.” Bill grinned at her, and 
lifted his hand abruptly in a signal to the waitress. “This 
is supposed to be a party,” he apologized, “and not a 
lecture by me. Tell me more about what you’ve been 
doing.” 

Catherine’s talk was fragmentary. Something—what 
Bill had said, or perhaps simply his being Bill with all 
the old associations close around him—had blown the 
froth away from the past two weeks; she had thought 
that she had become almost a different Catherine, bright, 
hard, full of enthusiasm and interest, absorbed in her 
role of Bureau-representative. She saw now that her 


272 LABYRINTH 

inner self still stood with feet entangled in perplexity and 
doubt. 

“Bill”—she broke into her own recital—“if a man 
doesn’t have free air at home, does he look for it some¬ 
where else?” 

“He may.” Bill’s quick upward glance was disturbed. 
He knew, then, about Charles and Stella. Henrietta would 
have told him. “Or”—lightly—“he runs along on a flat 
tire.” 

Catherine was silent, her mind skipping along with 
the absurd figure. Stella Partridge was, after all, too 
busy pumping her own ego hard to perform that task 
long for any man. She might flatter him, and cajole- 

“Do the children write to you?” 

Catherine reached into the pocket of her coat. 

“I’ve been moving too fast the last few days to have 
letters. I expect a lot to-morrow in Ohio.” She spread 
the sheet on the table. “Here’s the latest. Letty made 
the crosses.” 

“Dere Mother I will be glad when you come home 
again because I do not like to sleep in Daddys and your 
room so well. Walter is coming to see me for a day and 
maybe I am going home with him we are being good I 
love You 

From your loving Son Spencer Hammond Good-by. 

“Nice kid.” Bill looked up. “Let’s see, he is just 
nine, isn't he?” 

“Going on ten.” Catherine refolded the letter. She 
loved the little smudge from an inky thumb in the margin. 

“What shall we do now? You have several hours 
left.” Bill set down his coffee cup. “Music? Theater? 
We can probably find seats for something.” 



IMPASSE 


273 

"I’d rather—” Catherine paused. “Is it too stormy 
for a walk? I never get out of doors any more. This 
morning, from a window in the building at the University, 
I had a glimpse of the lake. Could we go there? I’d 
like to see how much like the ocean it is.” 

“IPs windy, of course.” 

“I’d like that.” A picture of herself, buffeted by winds 
over a stretch of water—perhaps that would blow away 
the melancholy cobwebs, would whip her again into froth. 

Bill summoned a taxi, and in silence they rode through 
the long streets, south toward the park, their shoulders 
brushing as the machine bumped over frozen slush. 

Bill slumped forward, his hands linked about his knees, 
his shoulders an arc of weariness. The long streets 
seemed drawn past the windows of the cab, on either side 
a sliding strip of unfamiliar shapes. It’s as if a spring 
had broken in him, thought Catherine, a secret spring 
which had kept him running. Perhaps Henrietta was 
right, and he is sick. 

“It’s a long way, isn’t it?” She had a plaintive mo¬ 
ment of loneliness. Bill was the one familiar thing in the 
strange city, and he had retreated almost beyond com¬ 
munication. “I didn’t know it was so far.” 

“We’re almost there.” Bill straightened his shoulders, 
and peered out at the sliding street. “In the Fifties. I 
thought you’d like Jackson Park. More space there.” 

A moment later he thrust open the door. 

“Here!” he called to the driver. “We’ll get out here.” 

II 

“There’s your lake.” Bill slipped his hand firmly un¬ 
der her arm, and they bent slightly forward into the dark 


274 


LABYRINTH 


rushing wind. At their feet a steady crunching, a rest¬ 
less churning as of china waves; beyond, a stretch of 
black hidden action under a sky black and infinitely re¬ 
mote, with sharp white stars. “This wind h^ broken up 
the shore ice.” 

Along the sloping beach rose vague suggestions of 
grotesqueries; piles thrusting tortured heads with ice- 
hair above the frozen surface, driftwood caught between 
great blocks of dirty ice. 

“It's like Dore’s Inferno.” Catherine shivered. “You 
remember? That frozen hell, with awful heads sticking 
up in the ice?” 

“Let’s walk along. You’re cold.” Buffeted, they went 
along the deserted drive, passing regularly from shadow 
into the burst of light under the yellow globes that hung 
above them. “I like that black sky,” said Bill. “In New 
York we never have that.” 

“No.” Catherine glanced westward, through bare 
limbs of trees. “See, there’s the city glare, back there.” 
She was warm again, her blood tingling under the dark 
rush of the wind; the black hidden movement of the 
water, the cold vasty black of the sky were exciting, like 
a shouted challenge. 

“Here is shelter from the wind.” Bill drew her into an 
angle made by the porch of a small summer pavilion. 
“You can put your head out to see the lake, without be¬ 
ing knocked flat.” 

The wind racketed in the loose boards nailed along 
the lake side of the porch. Catherine leaned back, 
laughing, out of reach of the gusts. She could just 
catch the dim outline of Bill’s face, his strong, aquiline 
profile. 


IMPASSE 


275 


“Bill!” She felt suddenly that in the dark, windy night 
there was nothing else human except Bill and herself; 
she wanted to burrow into his silence, his withdrawal. 
Her fingers brushed his arm in soft demand. 

“Great, isn’t it ?” His voice was low and warm, walk¬ 
ing under the rush of the wind. “Blows the nonsense 
clear out of you.” He moved slightly so that his shoulder 
sheltered her. “Warm enough?” 

“I shouldn’t like to be here alone.” She couldn’t see 
his face distinctly—shadowy eye sockets, dark mouth. 
“I’d feel too little! You keep me life-size.” 

Silence, warm and comforting, like a secret place within 
the noise of the wind rattling at the boards, churning up 
the ice cakes. 

“I can’t pry into him.” Catherine’s feeling broke into 
splinters of thought. “It wouldn’t be fair. He’d hate it. 
Digging under to see his roots. Something passionless 
and fine in this—no strife—as if he accepted me—whole. 
Dear Bill.” 

“Well?” He was smiling at her, she knew. “You 
have a train to catch, haven’t you?” 

They stood together in the downtown station. Bill 
had collected her luggage from the check-room, had 
brought a bunch of violets for her from the little florist’s 
counter. 

“It’s Valentine’s Day, you know.” He watched gravely 
as she fastened them against the soft beaver of her collar. 
“I’m starting East to-morrow,” he said. “I’ll see your 
family before you do, won’t I?” 

“You can give them my love first hand. Tell them I’m 
coming soon.” 


LABYRINTH 


276 

“I’ll tell them you are so triumphant and successful 
that they will be fortunate to have you again.” 

Catherine laughed softly. A local train was an¬ 
nounced, draining off the waiting people, leaving them 
almost alone in the station. 

“You know,” she said, quietly, “you puff me up, Bill. 
Not when you say ridiculous things like that, but all the 
time.” Under his seeking, hungry eyes, she flushed. 
“And I am grateful.” 

A scurry to the platform, as the through express 
rolled in. Bill, relinquishing her bags to the porter, seized 
her hand in a hard clasp, and stood, bareheaded, below 
her on the platform shouting, “Good luck!” as she was 
carried with increasing rush away. 

Ill 

Catherine, braced against the shivers and jounces of 
the old Ford taxi, wondered inertly what it would feel 
like to live in such a town, in one of those two-story 
frame houses, with a corrugated iron garage in the rear, 
and grayish lace curtains at the windows, with smoke- 
blackened sparrows scrapping in the front yard, and 
drifting, curling feathers of soot in the dingy air. I 
could plan a town like this with a ruler, she thought. 
A straight line for the business street, a few parallel 
lines, a few right-angled lines: dots for churches, one of 
each kind; for moving-picture theaters; for schools; small 
squares for yards and houses. Factories along the rail¬ 
road, pouring up the blanket of smoke under which the 
town lay. Was that the soul of the town, that close¬ 
hanging smoke, with its drifting feathers of soot? And 


IMPASSE 


277 


then, out at the edge, where the frame houses were far 
apart, scattered, a handful of college buildings, in medie¬ 
val isolation. When she had said “Hope College” to 
the driver, he had shrieked to a baggage master, “Hi, 
Chuck! Where’s Hope Collidge, d’yuh know?” 

“Out past the lunatic asylum. You know, down the 
car track.” 

Hope College, typical of the small denominational in¬ 
stitutions offering a normal certificate. So Dr. Roberts 
had classified it. 

That must be the lunatic asylum, that group of brick 
buildings with prison windows. They were well out of 
town, now, the cab skidding and jerking over deep ruts. 
Gray, flat, interminable fields under a flat gray sky. It’s 
like a dream, thought Catherine, a funny, burlesque of a 
dream, with me rattling along. 

“This it, lady?” The taxi shivered in all its bolts as 
it halted, and the driver poked his head in at the door. 
There was a driveway winding between two rows of 
small blotched poplar trunks, and back from the road two 
square brick buildings, scrawled over with black network 
of old vines. 

“I don’t know.” 

“Guess it must be.” He slammed the door and whirred 
up the driveway. 

Just as Catherine climbed the steps, still moving vaguely 
in a dream burlesque, a clangor of bells burst out, fol¬ 
lowed by the clamp of feet, the sound of voices released. 
She opened the heavy door, and stepped into the hall. The 
sense of dream vanished; this was real enough. Opposite 
the door rose the central stairs of the building, twisting 
up in a dimly lighted well. Up and down them climbed 


LABYRINTH 


278 

young people, girls, a few boys. Shabby, gaudy, flippant, 
serious—Catherine watched them, with a sharp resurgence 
of all her shining belief, her keen, exciting delight in the 
thing she had come for. 

She marched into an office at the left of the hall. A 
girl sitting at a small table, her smooth, pale-yellow head 
bent over a book, looked up. 

“Is this the Dean’s office?” Catherine smiled at her; 
something like Letty in the yellow hair, although the face 
•was rather strained and thin. “I'm Mrs. Hammond, from 
the Lynch Bureau.” 

“She’ll be right in.” The girl rose and opened the 
door into the adjoining office, as if in uncertainty. “She 
hasn’t come down from class yet. If you’ll sit down-” 

“Yes. Do you happen to know whether there is any 
mail for me here?” 

“I’ll see.” The girl had an awkward, half-suspicious 
way of staring. “Mrs. Charles Hammond?” she asked. 

Catherine sat down on a hard straight chair near the 
window; the girl’s eyes were inquisitive, over the edge of 
her book. Catherine shuffled the envelopes hastily. Noth¬ 
ing from home. Strange—she had given them this ad¬ 
dress, and for this date. A bulky envelope from Dr. 
Roberts, a thin one from Henrietta. She tore open the 
flap of the latter, and let the round, jerky writing leap 
at her. Every one was well. Henrietta thought she 
might be interested in some hospital gossip. Stella Part¬ 
ridge had been doing some work for Dr. Beck, the psy¬ 
chiatrist, and had told several of the other doctors that 
she thought a medical man should be in charge of the 
clinic rather than a mere Ph. Doctor. “She says Beck 
has asked her to help him with a book, but I have a 



IMPASSE 


279 

strong doubt. Has Charles found her out, do you 
suppose?” 

Catherine folded the latter, and tried to poke with it 
into its envelope the swirl of feeling it evoked. For a 
brisk little woman had darted into the office and at a word 
from the girl was darting now at her. 

“Mrs. Hammond? I’m Dean Snow. Come right in!” 
The pressure of her palm against Catherine’s was like a 
firmly stuffed pincushion. “Has anyone else with a cold 
been in, Martha?” 

Catherine, passing ahead of the Dean into her office, 
caught the friendly softening in the voice of the girl as 
she answered, 

“No’m, not this morning. The plumber came, and I 
sent him over to the dormitory. He says that pipe is 
rusted and ought to come out. I told him he’d have to 
see you first.” 

“That’s right, Martha. And you got those letters off?” 

“Yes’m.” 

“Good.” 

She followed Catherine, closing the door. 

“Just have a chair, Mrs. Hammond.” She whisked 
herself into place beside the old roll-top desk, her rotating 
office chair creaking as she settled down on its springs. 
A little cubby-hole of an office, with a sort of film of long_ 
use over the gray walls and painted floor, over the 
crammed pigeon holes of the desk, over the huge framed 
photographs—the “Acropolis,” the “Porch of the 
Maidens,” the “Sistine Madonna,” and, above the desk, 
a faded group photograph of gentle faces above enormous 
puffed sleeves; in the corner a small hat-tree, from which 
a rusty umbrella dangled. 


28 o 


LABYRINTH 


“You teach, Miss Snow, in addition to being Dean?” 

“Oh, yes. Latin and Greek. It’s a great relief from 
plumbers and colds.” She had a plump, white face, with 
gray bangs over her forehead, sharp blue eyes, and full 
pink lips held firmly together. She has humor, thought 
Catherine, and common sense, but she’s intolerant. “So 
you’re making an investigation of us, are you?” The 
Dean rubbed at a streak of chalk-dust on the sleeve of her 
tight dress. “What do you expect us to do after you 
point out our shortcomings?” 

She thinks I am dressy and interfering. Catherine held 
her hands motionless against her desire to fidget. She’s 
just the kind of sensible woman I can’t get on with. 

“The Bureau wants to make a constructive study,” she 
said. “Not a criticism.” 

“We need just one constructive thing.” Miss Snow 
smiled. “Money. We’re poor. Small endowment fund. 
The Baptists around here seem poorer each year. Now 
I haven’t had a secretary for five years. The students 
help me out, and I deduct the hours from their tuition. 
If we had money we could do much more. We get fine 
young people. The godless younger generation doesn’t 
come here. We wouldn’t admit them if they wanted to 
come. Our girls and boys know how to work. They are 
in earnest. But you don’t want to give us money, do 
you? No, you want to change things. Mrs. Hammond—” 
She leaned forward, her plump fist coming down whack 
on her knee. “I’ve been here almost forty years, as 
student, teacher, officer. Our President, Dr. Whitmore, 
has been here as long as that. Don’t you think we know 
how to run a college?” 

Catherine hunted for phrases, gracious, illuminating, 


IMPASSE 


281 


with which to justify her mission. So many of these 
little colleges through the state, such diversity of aim, 
changes in educational ideas- 

“You see/' she finished appealingly, “that’s our idea. 
That there should be a clear, definite program in the 
training of young teachers, and that enough is known 
about educational needs now to make such a program 
feasible.” 

“I’ve watched young people go out of here for many 
years now, and I know it doesn’t make much difference 
what they’ve been taught. If they have the fear of God, 
if they are earnest and faithful, they succeed. If not— 
none of your modern folderols will save them. Give 
them the mental discipline of mathematics and the classics, 
and they can teach children reading and writing all right. 
I’ve seen too many fads in education to take them seri- 
ouslv. First it was natural science that was to make the 
world over, and we had to raise a fund for a laboratory. 
Then—oh, there’s no use listing them. But I ask you, 
Mrs. Hammond, what’s happened to Rousseau, or Froe- 
bel, or that woman a year or so ago, that foreigner, 
Monty somebody, who had a new scheme? Gone. You 
have to cling to the eternal verities. Fads pass.” 

The building quivered under the violent clangor of 
bells and the sound of hurrying feet. Miss Snow pulled 
open a drawer and lifted out a shabby, yellow-edged 
volume. “Here’s one thing that stands. Ovid.” She 
tucked it under her arm and rose. “I have a class now. 
Would you care to visit it?” 

In the late afternoon Catherine stood in the hall, bidding 
Miss Snow farewell. 



282 


LABYRINTH 


“It’s been interesting, and I appreciate the time you 
have given me, out of your very busy day,” she said. 

“I’ve enjoyed it.” Miss Snow shook hands vigorously. 
“I enjoy talking. It airs my ideas even if it doesn’t 
change them much. I wish you could stay to hear the 
Glee Club practice to-night. We’re real proud of their 
singing.” 

“I have to take that very early train.” Catherine de¬ 
scended the steps and climbed into the waiting taxi— 
the same one which had brought her. “The Commer¬ 
cial House,” she said. 

The early February twilight lay over the fields, as if 
the smoke had settled more closely on the earth. She 
leaned back, letting the day float past her, in unselected, 
haphazard bits. All that zeal and honest industry poured 
into medieval patterns. The very best of the old pat¬ 
terns, no doubt, with that stern righteousness, that obli¬ 
gation in them. Something infinitely pitiful, touching, 
in those young things she had watched, awkward, serious, 
patient, most of them. 

“Of course, most of our girls teach only a few years, 
and then marry,” Miss Snow had said. She couldn’t have 
had more finality if she had said, “and then die!” 

Luncheon, a hurried half hour in a chilly, bare dining 
hall, with grace helping the creamed codfish grow cold. 
The other faculty members, serious and threadbare, like 
farm horses, thought Catherine, with bare spots chafed 
by the harness of inadequate salary, of monotony. As 
untouched by any modern thought as if centuries of time 
separated them. And each year, young people turned into 
that hopper. 

If I can put that feeling down on paper, she thought, 


IMPASSE 


283 

it should move even this mountain of age and tradition. 
To-morrow, my day will be different; the large colleges 
are somewhat awake. But there are hundreds of these. 

At the desk of the hotel she asked hopefully for mail. 
Perhaps she had given this address to Charles and Miss 
Kelly, and not the college. The clerk poked through a 
pile of letters and shook his bald, red head. Three days 
without a word, for Henrietta’s letter had been written 
days ago. After a moment of hesitation—amusing, how 
old habits of economy hung on!—she wrote out a 
telegram. 

“Night letter?’’ The clerk counted the words. 

“No. I want it to go the quickest possible way. I 
want an answer before that morning train.’’ 

In the bare little hotel room, she sat down under the 
light, her writing pad balanced on her knee. A note to 
Dr. Roberts. 

“There seems no limit to the things we may accom¬ 
plish,” she wrote, “when I see, at first hand, what the 
catalogue discrepancies really mean, in flesh and blood 
and buildings.” 

Suppose something was wrong, at home? She stared 
about at the dingy, painted walls, with faint zigzags of 
cracks, and fear prickled through the enthusiasm which 
enclosed her. This was the first time that letters had 
failed to meet her. In two hours, or three, she should 
have an answer to her message. “Please wire me at once, 
care Commercial House. No word from you here.” She 
picked up her pen again. No use to worry; letters mis¬ 
carried, and she would hear soon. 

She opened Henrietta’s letter, to reread the comment 
on Stella Partridge. Something behind that, she thought. 


284 LABYRINTH 

That woman doesn’t make incautious remarks. Her mind 
fumbled with the news, as if it were a loose bit out of an 
intricate mechanism; if she could fit it into place, she 
could see how the whole affair ran. That was one of 
Charles’s lowest boiling points, that contention about 
medical men and psychologists. Perhaps Partridge had 
been too greedy, and laid those smooth hands of hers on 
something Charles particularly wanted for himself, for 
his own job. Whatever it is—Catherine rose suddenly, 
piling her letters and portfolio on the corner of the 
dresser—whatever it is, I mean to know about it, when 
I go home again. I am through fumbling along. 

Her room had grown chilly. A wind rattled at the 
loose sash of the window. She looked out at the angle 
of street; a hardware store across the way mirrored its 
enormous window light in shining pans and kettles. The 
air seemed full of whirling bits of mica. She pushed 
the window up and leaned out; sharp and wet on her 
face, the mica was snow, driven along on the wind. 

Only an hour since she had telegraphed. She would 
go down to dinner. Something insidious in the way 
the soft fingers of worry pried between thoughts, pushed 
down deeper than thought. 

She stopped at the desk. 

“If a message comes for Mrs. Hammond, please send 
it in to the dining room.” 

“Guess we’re going to have a blizzard, aren’t we?” 
The clerk rubbed an inky forefinger thoughtfully over 
his red baldness. “Coming along from Chicago and the 
west on this wind.” 

More pushing of those soft fingers: delay of trains, 
wires down, who knows when I may hear! 


IMPASSE 


285 

“It may not be a bad storm,” said Catherine, and 
went resolutely in to dinner. But she heard the clerk’s, 
“You can’t tell when you’re going to get trouble.” 

In the dining room, a few traveling men scattered about 
at tables sending glances of incurious speculation after 
her as she chose a seat; a middle-aged waitress whose 
streaked purplish hair shrieked aloud her effort to keep 
youth enough to win tips, and whose heavy, laborious 
tread spoke more loudly of aching, fallen arches. Cath¬ 
erine started at the twin bottles of vinegar and yellowish 
oil in the center of the table. Letty’s just gone to bed, 
she thought. Mrs. O’Lay is serving dinner. I shouldn’t 
care to be a traveling saleswoman. The hotel drives my 
job into some remote limbo. I’ll go to bed early. To¬ 
morrow, at the University, it will be different. Such a 
cordial note from that history professor’s wife, asking 
me to stay with them. It was nice of Dr. Roberts to write 
personally to them. 

Good steak, at least. Fair coffee. Finally, as the 
waitress set a triangle of pie before her, she saw the clerk 
in the doorway, his eyes focusing on her. He came slowly 
toward her. It’s come, thought Catherine. He ought not 
to button that alpaca coat; absurd, the way it creases over 
his fat stomach. 

“They just telephoned this from the station,” he said, 
laying a sheet of paper beside her plate. The elaborate 
scrolled heading, Commercial House, wriggled under 
her eyes, settled flatly away as she read the penciled 
words. 

Spencer hurt coasting wired you this morning can 
you come 


Charles 


286 


LABYRINTH 


“Hope it’s nothing serious, ma'am.” 

Those soft fingers of worry had unsheathed their 
claws; they tore at her, deep in the unheeded, rhythmic 
working of her body. She could not breathe, nor see, nor 
speak. Spencer! 

“Nothing serious/’ he repeated, and suddenly her heart 
was clattering against her ribs. She could lift her eyes 
from that paper. Why, he had a kindly face, that bald 
clerk; his flat nostrils had widened a little, in avid human 
sniffing at disaster, but his eyes were sympathetic. 

“It's my little boy.” She could breathe now. “It 
says he is hurt. Why—” she thrust back her chair in 
a violent motion, and wavered as she stood up. “There 
was a telegram this morning. I should have known this 
morning!” 

“That’s too bad, Ma’am. It never came here.” 

“I’ll have to get a train.” Catherine was hurrying out 
of the dining room, the clerk at her heels. “When 
can I ?” 

“It don’t say how bad he’s hurt.” She felt his hand 
close about her arm. “You sit down here, and I’ll ’phone 
to the station for you.” He drew her into the enclosure 
behind his counter, and pushed her gently into an old 
leather chair. “Little fellows stand an awful lot of knock¬ 
ing around. I’ve got three, so I ought to know. Now, 
take it easy. Where you want to go? New York 
City?” 

Grateful tears in Catherine’s eyes made prismatic edges 
around his solid figure. As she watched him thumbing 
a railroad folder, her panic lifted slightly. Perhaps— 
oh, perhaps Spencer wasn’t badly hurt. Charles would 
be frightened, would want her, 


IMPASSE 


287 

“Um. That's too bad. You just missed a good train.” 
He turned to the telephone. “Gimme the station. 
Yea-uh. That's right.” 

Henrietta would be there. 

“When's the next through train east, Chuck? Huh? 
No, the next one.” He spit his words out of the corner 
of his mouth toward the receiver. “Any word of that 
out of Chicago yet? Well, say, I got a lady here got 
to get to New York on it. Got to, I said. You got 
any berths here? Well, you could wire for one, couldn't 
you? What you hired for?” 

He hung up the earpiece. 

“He says there’s trouble west of here. Snow. That 
seven o’clock just went through, late. He’s gonna let 
me know about the midnight.” 

“I'd better go to the station.” 

“What for? You stay here where it's comfortable. 
You go up to your room and I’ll let you know. I’m on 
till midnight.” 

“Just go up and wait?” Catherine was piteous. 

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll take care of you. Now don’t you 
go worrying. I always tell my wife she’d have the grass 
growing over all of us if worry could do it. That’s 
the woman of it, I suppose.” 

“You’re very kind.” Catherine was reluctant to leave 
him. He was a sort of bulwark between her and the rush 
of dark fear. “I ought to wire them-” 

“Sure. Here, write it out. It stands in reason he 
needn’t be hurt much, and still he’d want his mother.” 

Catherine’s pencil wobbled in her stiff fingers. Spencer 
would want her. All day he had wanted her. Hours 
between them- 




288 


LABYRINTH 


“Will take first train.” She looked up, her lip quiver¬ 
ing. “I wouldn’t have time for an answer, would I?” 

“You ought not to, if that train’s anywhere near on 
time, and if there’s a berth left on it.” The clerk turned 
away, to fish cigars out of his counter for a man who 
stood waiting, one hand plying a busy toothpick. 

“D’yuh hear anything about the blizzard down Chi¬ 
cago way?” the man asked. “Say it’s put kinks in the 
train service.” 

“You always hear worse than happens.” The clerk’s 
glance at Catherine was anxious. But she signed her 
name to the message and wrote out the address. 

V 

The midnight express for New York, coming through 
three hours late, did not stop. The clerk came up to 
Catherine’s door to tell her. 

“They ain’t an empty berth on her,” he said. “Took 
off several coaches to lighten her for the drifts.” 

“What am I going to do?” Catherine asked. 

“There’s a local in the morning. You could get some¬ 
thing out of Pittsburgh, if you got that far.” 

The rest of the night, the next day, the next night, all 
were to Catherine grotesquely unreal, as if life had been 
transposed to a different key, where all familiar things 
were flatted into dissonance and harsh strangeness. All 
night the scrape of snow-plows and shovels, futile against 
the snow; the snow which seemed the wind itself turned 
to dry, drifting, impenetrable barriers. The local, dragged 
by two locomotives, hours late, like a moving snowdrift 
itself. The hours in that train, with nothing but snow 


IMPASSE 


289 

darkening the windows, hiding the world, driving through 
the aisles with the opening of the doors. Pittsburgh, late 
in the afternoon, and no word from Charles. She beat 
helplessly against the gruff taciturnity of the ticket agent; 
he had stood up all day confronting cross, belated trav¬ 
elers. There was a train in an hour, making connections 
at Philadelphia. Night on that train, in a crowded day 
coach, malodorous and noisy. She felt as if she dragged 
the train herself, down through strange valleys, where 
blast furnaces sent up red shrieks of flame, through dim, 
sleeping towns. 

Philadelphia at two, the next morning. A narrow strip 
of platform across which the wind whirled. Another 
crowded day coach. Where were these people going, that 
colored boy, asleep, his feet stuck out into the aisle in their 
ragged socks, his shoes clasped under one arm—that man 
and woman, slumping peacefully against each other, 
mouths drooping wide? 

As Catherine stepped down to the platform in the New 
York station, the huge dim roofs of the train shed spun 
dangerously about her. A porter loped beside her, pawing 
at her bag, but she walked away from him, her eyes wide 
like a somnambulist. She made her way to a telephone 
booth, and then, when she had lifted her hand to drop 
in the nickel, stopped abruptly. If she telephoned, and 
something dreadful came over the wire, buzzing into her 
head, it would transfix her there, unable to move, held 
forever behind that close, dirty glass door. She pushed 
violently against the door, freed herself, and fled out to 
the street. She passed on the steps a woman crawling 
on her knees, one arm moving in sluggish circles, scrub- 


290 


LABYRINTH 


bing. After she had found a taxi and was whirring away 
through the dark street, the motion of that weary arm 
continued before her eyes. How dark the city was, and 
still, as if she had come into it just at the turn of the 
tide, before the morning life moved in. “Dark o’ the 
moon”—she heard Spencer’s voice chanting—“pulls the 
ole water away from the earth.” 

When she stepped out of the cab she did not even 
glance at the house. She paid the driver, picked up her 
bag, and went into the dim, tiled hall. She was empty, 
capable of precise, brisk movement. All her fear, her 
pressure of anxiety, her physical weariness, were held in 
solution, waiting the moment which would crystallize 
them. She stood at the elevator shaft, her finger on the 
button. The car was beneath her, the dust-nap of its 
top at her feet. The bell shrilled, but nothing else stirred. 
The man is asleep, she thought, dispassionately, and with¬ 
out haste she began to climb the stairs to the fifth 
floor. 

At the door she stopped again, staring a moment at 
the small card, Hammond. She had no key. If she 
rang, she would waken everyone. But she must, in 
some way, enter. She knocked, softly. Her face, turned 
up to the dark painted grain of the metal door, grew 
imploring. 

There was her door, and she couldn’t open it, couldn’t 
know what was behind it! Like a dreadful nightmare. 
She pounded with her knuckles. Then, softly, the door 
opened, and Charles, his bathrobe trailing, his eyes sleep- 
swollen, was blinking at her. She seemed a dream to 
him, too! 

“Why, Catherine—you? How’d you get here, this time 


IMPASSE 


291 

of day?” He whispered, and then he closed the door 
with a caution alarming in its quietness. 

“Spencer! Tell me—” Catherine’s nostrils quivered 
at a strange smell in the dark hall, an odor of antiseptics, 
of drugs. 

“Thought you’d never come.” Charles muttered. 
“Ghastly, your not being here.” 

“Is he here?” Catherine started to pass Charles, but 
he caught her, held her a moment. Catherine felt in the 
pressure of his arms, in his harsh kiss, the thwarted 
rage, helplessness, distress—she knew she had those 
to meet, later. Now— “Tell me, please!” she begged. 
“Spencer.” 

“He’s better.” Charles released her. “Sleeping now. 
Mustn’t disturb him.” He led the way to the living room, 
past closed, dark doors. “We’d better go into the 
kitchen.” 

Catherine stumbled into a chair. 

“He was hurt, coasting. He and Walter Thomas. 
Right in front of the house. Miss Kelly was just com¬ 
ing out with the other children, to take them all to the 
park. He and Walter—coasted around the corner, into 
a truck. Hurt his head. Miss Kelly carried him in here 
herself.” Charles was leaning against the table, his face 
away from Catherine, his mouth twisting wryly. Cath¬ 
erine touched his hand. “When I got home, Henrietta 
was here, and another surgeon. His head—” Cath¬ 
erine swung up to a sharp peak of agony—Spencer? She 
saw, unbearably, that fine, sensitive, growing life of his, 
smeared over. “They didn’t dare move him. Uncon¬ 
scious. Stitches in his temple. They think now he’s all 
right.” He grew suddenly voluble, shrill. “You can’t 


LABYRINTH 


292 

tell about such things at once. Have to wait. Might 
injure his brain. But he’s been conscious, perfectly clear¬ 
headed, normal. Got a good nurse. Just keep him 
quiet, flat on his back. Children are tough— Oh, 
Catherine-” 

A door was opening somewhere, an inch at a time. 
Catherine strained forward, too heavy with pain to rise. 
She felt Charles’s uneasy start, felt the hours of anxiety 
behind the sharp gripping of his hand under hers. Feet 
shuffled toward them. Her mother appeared at the door, 
her blue eyes blinking under the frill of her lace cap, a 
perceptible quaver in the old hand which held together 
the folds of her gray bathrobe. 

“Thank Heaven you’ve come, Catherine!” She scuffed 
across the linoleum and pecked softly at Catherine’s cheek. 
“Poor little Spencer—he asked for you.” 

“Oh!” Catherine was on her feet, but Charles held her 
fingers restrainingly. 

“Last night, mother means. The nurse said she’d call 
me the instant he woke. He’s really sleeping now. Not 
unconscious.” 

Catherine stood between them for a moment of silence. 
“It stands to reason he might not be hurt bad, and yet 
want his mother.” Who said that? Some one had said 
it to her. 

“We looked for you yesterday,” said Mrs. Spencer. 

“Blizzards. I couldn’t get a train.” Catherine felt a 
bond between them, excluding her, accusing her. Charles 
stared at her, his eyes sunken, the lines about his mouth 
deepened; her mother—a thin, wrinkled film seemed 
drawn over her face, dimming her color. “I came the 
instant I could. I sat up on a local.” She clasped her 



IMPASSE 


293 


hands against her breast, against the heavy, pounding 
ache. 

“You must be tired to pieces, poor child.” Her mother 
patted her arm. “Don’t feel so bad, Cathy. It might 
have happened if you’d been right here. And it’s turning 
out so much better than-” 

“But I wasn’t here,’’ said Catherine, quietly. And then, 
“What about Walter?’’ She could see that sled sweeping 
around the corner. . “Was he hurt?” 

“Shaken up and bruised. Spencer was steering.” 

A rustle at the door, a strange face staring at her, 
crisp and cold above white linen. 

“Yes?” Charles stepped forward intently. 

“The little boy is awake.” 

“This is Mrs. Hammond, Miss Pert. She may go in?” 

She was a culprit, a stranger, trembling, unable to 
move. 

“You’d better take off your hat and coat, Mrs. Ham¬ 
mond. And don’t excite him. He's drowsy.” 

The dim, shaded light; a little still mound under the 
counterpane; under the smooth white turban of bandages, 
Spencer’s gray eyes, moving softly with her flight from 
the door to his bed. On her knees beside him, her fingers 
closing about his hand. Quiet, not to excite him. How 
limp and small his hand felt! 

“Hello, Moth-er!” He sighed, and his eyelids shut 
down again. 

VI 

The next two weeks life was a shadow show outside 
that room where Spencer lay. “He must be kept flat and 
motionless,” the surgeon said, with Dr. Henrietta nodding 



294 


LABYRINTH 


assent. ‘‘Even as he feels stronger.” Catherine was con¬ 
centrated entirely upon that. Everything reduced itself 
to terms of Spencer. Books that she might read to him, 
games she might devise, stories she could tell—anything 
to keep him content until it was safe for him to lift that 
bandaged, wounded head. Always there was the terror 
lest some sign of injury might show itself, some quirk in 
his mind, some change in personality, some flush to indi¬ 
cate fever and infection. “We think he has, miraculously, 
escaped any bad effects,” said Henrietta, “but we can’t be 
absolutely sure for a few days.” At night, when he slept, 
Catherine would leave Charles in the house, and slip out 
for a quick walk in the cold March ^darkness. But terrify¬ 
ing images pursued her—sudden blackness shutting down 
over that shining, golden reality that was Spencer to 
her—and she would hasten back, unassuaged of her terror 
until she stood again at the door of his room. 

When her trunk came, she had rummaged through it, 
selecting all the material of her work, and sending it to 
Dr. Roberts with a brief note. “My son has been injured 
and I can do nothing more with this. If you can send 
someone else to finish the work, please do so. I can not 
even think of it for the present.” 

There would come a day, she knew, when she could 
think again, a day when she would face the lurking 
shadows of her guilt, would determine what it meant. 
Not now. Not until Spencer was well. 

Charles was waiting, too, she knew. He was subdued, 
considerate, concerned lest she overtax herself. But he 
seemed one of the shadows in the outer world. 

Then Spencer lost his angelic patience, and began to 
fret humanly about lying flat in bed. 


IMPASSE 


295 

“A few more days, Spencer.” Henrietta smiled at him. 
‘‘Then this crack in your head will be healed enough.” 

“But I feel all right now.” 

Fear, retreating, dragged away the distortion it had 
given, and gradually the shadows about Catherine grew 
three-dimensional again. Henrietta warned her: “You’ll 
have a frightful slump, Catherine, unless you let yourself 
down easily, after this strain.” 

“I don’t feel tired, not at all.” 

“That’s the trouble. And you are. Rest more. Spencer 
doesn’t need you every second now. Let Charles sleep 
here to-night.” 

Catherine shook her head. 

“I sleep fairly well here, because I know I shall wake 
if Spencer stirs. Anywhere else I should lie awake, 
listening.” 

“But he’s safe now. I’m sure of that. The only 
danger, after the first, was infection. And that’s past. 
Two more days and I’ll let him up. I don’t want you 
down.” Henrietta paused, her fingers running along the 
black ribbon of her glasses. “When are you going back 
to work?” she flung out. 

A subtle change in Catherine’s face, like the quick draw¬ 
ing of shades at all the windows of a house. 

“I don’t know.” She moved away from Henrietta, to 
glance in at Spencer. 

“Um.” Henrietta shrugged. “Well, I’ll be in early 
to-morrow.” 

That was the first shadow to take real form. When 
was she going back to work? And behind the shades 
drawn against Henrietta moved a sharp curiosity. What 
had Dr. Roberts done about the investigation ? There had 


LABYRINTH 


296 

been a note from him, tossed into a drawer. A note of 
sympathy. Had he said anything about the work? But 
as she made a faint motion to go in search of the note, 
Spencer called her. 

Another shadow to grow more real was Miss Kelly. 
She had managed Letty with amazing competence, keep¬ 
ing her quiet and amused. She had come earlier in the 
morning than usual, to dress Marian and walk with her 
to school. But she was worried, shying away when she 
met Catherine in the hall, and her pale blue eyes stared 
with some entreaty in them. The day that Spencer first 
sat up, Charles carried him into the living room to the 
armchair, and Catherine tucked a rug about his feet and 
left him there, to look out of the window. As she went 
back to the bedroom, she heard a choking, muffled sound, 
and there in the hall stood Miss Kelly, her hands over 
her face. 

“What is it?” she asked gently, touching the woman’s 
shoulder. Then, as she looked at the swollen, reddened 
eyes, she knew. “He’s quite well again,” she said. “Don’t 
cry.” 

“I—I hadn’t left him a second,” Miss Kelly whispered. 
“Just to help Letty down the steps.” 

“I know. I haven’t thought you were careless.” 

“I thought I’d go crazy. He’s never coasted in the 
street. The other boy thought of it.” 

“It was an accident, Miss Kelly. You mustn’t blame 
yourself.” 

The entreaty faded under the flush of gratitude. Miss 
Kelly turned ,and hurried back to Letty’s room, her square 
shoes clumping solidly. 


IMPASSE 


29 7 


VII 

Saturday afternoon. Spencer was dressed, even to his 
shoes. Catherine had suggested moccasins, but Spencer 
held out for shoes. “Then I’ll be sure, Mother, that I’m 
really up!” The terrifying pallor had left his face. The 
bandages were gone, too; just the pink, wrinkled mouth¬ 
like scar spoke audibly of the past weeks. 

“You’ll have to part your hair in the middle, Spencer,” 
Dr. Henrietta had told him, “until this bald spot grows 
out.” And Spencer had retorted, promptly, “I wouldn’t 
be that sissy!” 

Catherine moved one of her red checkers, smiled a 
little, wondering where he had picked up that idea, and 
glanced away from Spencer and checker board, out of 
the window. The bare trees of Morningside pricked up 
through gray mist; the distant roofs were vague. What 
a horrid day! It seemed too raw and cold for Spencer’s 
first trip outdoors. But he really was well again. Mon¬ 
day he could go out. It was true, Henrietta’s prophecy. 
She was being let down with a thud. There seemed no 
place where she could take hold of ordinary life again. 

Spencer giggled. 

“I jumped three of your men, Mother, and you never 
saw I could.” 

“Why, so you did.” Catherine looked at her dis¬ 
mantled forces. She couldn’t even keep her mind on 
those disks of wood. “There.’’ She moved. 

“Oh, Moth-er!” Spencer was gathering in the last of 
the red checkers. “You’re a punk player. You’re a 
dumb-bell!” 

“What a name! Where did you find that word?” 


LABYRINTH 


298 

Catherine watched him; he was teasing her—that funny 
little quirk in his eyebrows. 

“Oh, the fellers say it.” Suddenly he swept the checkers 
into a heap. “I’m sick of checkers.” 

“Want to read a while?” 

“I’m sick of reading. Staying in the house just wears 
me out, Mother.” 

The doorbell broke the quiet of the house, and Cath¬ 
erine, with a relieved, ‘Now we’ll see what’s coming!” 
went out to the door. Her mother, perhaps, or Margaret. 

“Hello, Catherine.” It was Bill, shifting a large pack¬ 
age that he might extend his hand. She hadn’t seen him 
since that night in Chicago. She had an impression of 
herself that night, confident, radiant, but vague and 
blurred, as if Bill showed her a faded photograph he had 
kept for years. “Henry said she thought I might call on 
Spencer,” he was saying. 

Catherine was grateful for the lack of inquiry. He 
would know that she had dropped everything in a heap, 
and that all the ends were tangled and confused. But 
knowing, he would ask her nothing, would not even indi¬ 
cate his knowledge. 

“I’ve brought something for him.” He jerked the arm 
which held the package. 

“Spencer’s in here.” Catherine led the way to the liv¬ 
ing room. “Here’s a caller for you,” she announced. 

“Hello, Mr. Bill!” Spencer lunged forward in his 
chair, but Bill set the box promptly before him. 

“This table is just what we need. I thought you might 
help me with this radio.” Bill shook himself out of his 
overcoat. And Catherine, with a smile at the sudden lift¬ 
ing of Spencer’s clouds of ennui, left them. 


IMPASSE 


299 

There were things to be done. She might as well shake 
off her lethargy and attack them. She heard Spencer’s 
eager voice, Bill’s deliberate tones, pronouncing strange 
phrases—amperes, tuning up, wave lengths. The laundry. 
Prosaic, distasteful enough. If she began with that, she 
might find a shred of old habit which would start her 
wheels running. 

She carried the bundles to her room, where she sorted 
the linen into piles on her bed. She had no list; she 
remembered Mrs. O'Lay at the door, last Monday, “The 
laundry boy’s here, Mis’ Hammond. Should I now just 
scramble together what I can put my hands on?” and her 
own indifferent answer. Five sheets. That seemed rea¬ 
sonable. And bath towels—that one was going. Cath¬ 
erine held it up to the light, poked her fingers through the 
shredded fabric, and tossed it to the floor. We need more 
of everything, she thought. Sheets—she stared at the 
neat white squares. If she unfolded them, probably she 
would find more shreds. Well, she wouldn’t look! They 
cost so much, sheets and towels, and you had so little fun 
for your money. She stowed away the piles in the linen 
drawers. Then she opened the bundle of clothing, un¬ 
ironed, tight, wrinkled lumps. Mrs. O’Lay would iron 
them. Little undergarments, small strings of stockings. 
At least she didn’t have to mend them; Miss Kelly was 
keeping them in order. She shook out a pajama coat; 
a jagged hole in the front whence a button had departed 
forcibly. She would have to mend Charles up. She 
chuckled; before she had gone away she had bought new 
socks for Charles, hiding those she had not found time 
to darn. He would never notice. 

She was rolling a pair of socks into a neat ball, turn- 


300 


LABYRINTH 


ing the ribbed cuff down to hold the ball, when she 
stopped. One finger flicked absently at a bit of gray lint. 
What was she going to do ? She was sorting those clothes 
quite as if Mrs. O’Lay and Miss Kelly were fixtures. 
And she wasn’t sure she had money enough to pay Miss 
Kelly for even one more week. 

She piled away the clothing, dodging her thoughts. 
But when she had finished her task, she stood at the win¬ 
dow, looking out at the court windows, and one by one 
her thoughts overtook her and assaulted her. 

Of course I’m going back to the Bureau, the very day 
Spencer goes to school again. There’s no new reason why 
I shouldn’t. Isn’t there? What about this feeling—that 
Spencer was a warning to me—a sign? That’s what 
mother meant. Her hand lifted to her forehead, smoothed 
back her hair. That’s not decent thinking, she went 
on. Absurd. Superstitious. Spencer might have been 
hurt even if I had been at his heels. Walter was hurt. 
Accidents—like a bony, threatening finger shaken at 
her! 

“Moth-er!” Spencer’s voice summoned her. Mr. Bill 
was going now, but he left the radio for Spencer to 
examine, and a book about it. 

“An’ he’s going to see the superintendent about wires 
to catch things on, and we can’t rig it truly until he gets 
a wire.” Spencer clasped the book under one arm, and 
drew the black box nearer him along the table. “It’s the 
most inturusting thing I ever saw, Mother.” His eyes 
were bright with pleasure. 

“I’m sorry,” said Bill, “that we can’t install it to-night. 
But perhaps to-morrow-” 

Catherine went to the door with Bill. 



IMPASSE 


3 01 

“It was good of you to come in,” she said. “He’s had 
a dull time.” 

Bill had his hand on the knob. 

“I’ve been out of town again for a week,” he said. 
“Henry kept me posted.” 

Then he was going, but Catherine caught at his 
arm. 

“Bill”—in a sharp whisper—“do you think it was my 
fault? Do you?” 

“Catherine!” He was laughing at her, comfortingly. 
“What rot!” 

“Is it?” She sighed. 

“You’re tired.” His hand enclosed hers warmly for 
a moment. “Henry says you’ve been wonderful, but not 
wise-” 

There was a clatter outside the door, a firm, “Now 
wait one second, Letty!” Bill pulled the door open; 
Letty, her pointed face framed in a red hood, Marian, 
pulling her tarn off her tousled dark hair, Miss Kelly be¬ 
hind them. 

“Oh, Mr. Bill!” Marian hugged his arm, and Letty 
clambered onto her go-duck that she might reach his 
hand, with a lusty, “ ’Lo, Bill!” 

“Come back and play with us, Mr. Bill,” Marian 
cajoled him, her head on one side. 

But Bill, grinning at her, eluding Letty’s grasp, stepped 
into the elevator and was gone. 

“ ’S’at Marian?” Spencer was shouting. “Oh, Marian, 
you come see what I got.” Marian darted ahead. As 
Catherine, with Letty’s damp mittened hand in hers, came 
to the door of the children’s room, she heard Spencer 
determinedly, “No, you can’t touch it! It’s too delicut. 



3 02 


LABYRINTH 


Mr. Bill told me it was too delicut. You keep your hands 
off it! It’s just lent to me.” 

“Who said I wanted to touch your ole radium ?” 

“It isn’t radium, Marian. Radio. And you were 
touching it.” 

“Marian, dear, come take your wraps off.” Miss Kelly 
had stowed Letty’s go-duck in the hall closet, and fol¬ 
lowed Catherine. “You musn’t bother Spencer.” 

“He’s well now, isn’t he?” She lagged into the bed¬ 
room. 

Catherine sat on one of the cots, watching. She had 
scarcely seen her two daughters since she had come back. 
She had known they were well, she had heard Miss Kelly 
often sidetracking them with, “No, your mamma is busy 
and you mustn’t disturb her. Poor little Spencer needs 
her and you don’t.” Miss Kelly had lifted Letty into a 
chair and was unbuttoning the red coat when Letty set 
up a strident wail, and stiffened into a ramrod which slid 
out from under Miss Kelly’s fingers. 

“Want my Muvver!” she shrieked. “Not you!” She 
flung herself on the edge of the bed beside Catherine, with 
gyrations of her red-gaitered plump legs. Catherine, 
laughing, dragged her up beside her. Letty snuggled 
against her, peering up with her blandishing smile. 

“All right, old lady.” Catherine tugged off the tiny 
rubbers, stripped down the knit leggings, noticing ab¬ 
sently the promptness with which Marian carried her own 
cloak and tarn to the closet and hung them away. Why, 
Miss Kelly had taught her to be orderly, she marveled. 
Then she saw Letty’s expression of sidewise ex¬ 
pectancy under long lashes. Miss Kelly was looking at 
her gravely. 


IMPASSE 


303 

“Letty tired.” She drooped into Catherine’s enclosing 
arm like a sleepy kitten. 

“That’s too bad.” Miss Kelly was unruffled. “Then 
you can’t show your mamma your own hook that you 
can reach.” 

Letty was quiet. Catherine felt the child’s body stiffen 
a little from its kittenlike relaxation, as if her inner con¬ 
flict was purely muscular, not thought at all. That’s the 
way children must think, she speculated. With a giggle 
Letty slid down from the bed, hugged her arms about the 
pile of scarlet garments, and marched to the closet. 

“I screwed a hook into the door, low down,” Miss Kelly 
explained. “Usually Letty doesn’t have to be told.” 

“And you don’t allow her to beguile you, do you?” 
Catherine laughed at the self-righteousness in Letty’s 
strut back to the bed. 

“You can’t,” said Miss Kelly, “or they run all over 
you.” 

“What runs over you?” demanded Marian. 

“Mice!” Letty’s shriek was almost in Catherine’s ear, 
as she plumped down in her mother’s lap. “Mice!” and 
she wiggled in laughter. “Free blind mice.” 

“Isn’t she silly!” But Marian giggled, too. “Who’s 
that?” The hall door sounded on its hinges. “Daddy!” 
Her rush halted at the door. “Oh, I thought you were my 
Daddy!” 

“Did you, now?” Mrs. O’Lay’s red face hung a mo¬ 
ment at the door, a genial full moon. “Well, I ain’t. 
But you’d best be glad I ain’t, for it’s little dinner he’d 
be getting for you.” 

Marian stuck a pink triangle of tongue after her as she 
disappeared, clumping down the hall. 


304 


LABYRINTH 


“She’s awful fat, isn’t she, Muvver?” She scuffled 
her feet slowly to the edge of the bed. “An’ she has a 
funny smell. I don’t know what she smells of, but she 
does.” 

“Ashes and floor oil,” said Catherine. She hadn’t 
noticed it, consciously. She caught Miss Kelly’s sur¬ 
prised, disapproving glance. “We’ll have to lengthen that 
dress, Marian,” she concealed her amusement, and her 
free hand pulled at the edge of the chambray dress. “Can’t 
pull it over your knees, can we?” 

“I have let out the tucks in four dresses,” said Miss 
Kelly. This was ground she knew. “But Marian is 
growing very fast.” 

Catherine’s arm went around Marian’s waist, and pulled 
her down at her side. 

“Short dresses are the style, aren’t they?” She hugged 
them both, Letty against her breast, Marian against her 
shoulder. Firm, warm, slim things, her daughters, grow¬ 
ing very fast. 

“What are you folks doing?” Spencer stood in the 
doorway, his eyes mournful. “I’m all alone.” 

“You’ve got your ole radium,” declared Marian 
promptly, “and you’re not sick any longer, even if I can 
see that cut, and our Muvver can stay with us now.” 

“Us now!” chanted Letty. 

“Oh, you’ve sorted the laundry, Mrs. Hammond?” 
Miss Kelly turned from the opened drawer. 

“Yes. I left a pile of clothes on a chair in Spencer’s 
room—they need buttons.” 

“I thought I’d just lay out clean underwear for morn¬ 
ing. Perhaps that shirt is with the pile.” She went past 
Spencer, who drew aside with a touch of petulance. 


IMPASSE 


305 

“Suppose we all go into the living room.” Catherine 
brushed Letty and Marian to their feet. “Daddy will be 
here soon, and we’ll all have dinner together for the first 
time. Yes, Letty, too. It’s a special occasion. Spencer’s 
first full-dress day.” 

“Should I wash for dinner now, Muvver?” Marian 
still clung to her mother’s arm. Catherine, looking down 
at the brown eyes, was disturbed. Marian was jealous of 
Spencer. She resented—oh, well, probably that was 
natural enough. Her legs outgrew her dresses, and her 
personality was growing as rapidly, shooting up, not 
wholly caught in civilized patterns. 

“Can you keep your hands clean until dinner? Per¬ 
haps you might wait until Daddy has come. Run along, 
children. I want to speak to Miss Kelly a moment.” 

“What about, Muvver?” 

“Business.” Catherine was firm, and Marian’s mood 
shifted quickly. 

“Show Letty your ole radium,” she said, dragging 
Letty after her, and Spencer pursued them in haste. 

“You needn’t stay for Letty’s supper,” said Catherine, 
as Miss Kelly returned. “You’ve been very kind to give 
me so many additional hours. And you certainly deserve 
to-morrow. It is several weeks, isn’t it, since you’ve had 
Sunday?” 

“That’s all right, Mrs. Hammond.” Miss Kelly laid 
the retrieved shirt on the dresser. “Of course, if you 
don’t need me to-morrow.” She looked at Catherine 
warily, her sandy lashes blinking, her nose still reddened 
from the afternoon. “You will want me next week?” 

“Of course.” Catherine frowned, a kind of panic 
whirring in her. 


LABYRINTH 


306 

“I wondered. I didn't know. Something your mother 
said. I knew you needed some one for the children only 
if you were working.” 

“You must have misunderstood mother.” The whir¬ 
ring deepened into fear, like wings, beating to escape the 
nets spread to:catch her. They all expected her to aban¬ 
don everything, to step back into the old harness. “Of 
course, I have made -no plans, until Spencer was well. 
But next week”—she spoke out boldly, denying her own 
doubts—“next week I shall—” she did not finish that 
sentence. “At any rate, Miss Kelly, I should tell you in 
advance. I’ve just been admiring the way you are train¬ 
ing the children. You are quite remarkable with them.” 


VIII 

When Charles came in, Marian flew to meet him, fling¬ 
ing her arms about him as far as they would go, with 
little squeals of delight. 

“Daddy, hello; we’re going to have a party. Letty, 
too. Spencer can sit up at the table.” 

“I should say I could,” broke in Spencer, indignantly. 

He looks tired—Catherine smiled at him over Letty’s 
yellow head. Sallow, discouraged. His glance withdrew 
quickly from hers, stopped at Spencer. 

“How’s the boy? Fine?” 

“Daddy!” Marian pulled at his sleeve. “I thought of 
something. Let me whisper it.” 

And Catherine, while Letty slipped from her lap in an 
endeavor to learn what Marian was whispering, thought: 
it’s a breaking off place, to-night. The interim is over. 


IMPASSE 


307 

“You'd better ask mother.” Charles ruffled Marian’s 
cropped head. 

“No! A secret, Daddy!” 

“Well. Ask Mrs. O’Lay, then.” 

“Tell Letty!” She pounded on his knee. 

“Here, you!” He glanced again at Catherine, and his 
grin was suddenly like Spencer’s. “That’s no way to 
learn a secret. You wait.” 

Catherine’s heart began to beat quickly. He is wretched 
about something, she thought. Bothered. But he wants 
to pretend. Marian whisked back, jumping about it. 
“It’s all right! She says sure!” 

“Then you wait at the door. Don’t let them guess,” 
and he stalked off, leaving Marian solemn in her delight, 
stationed at the door. 

“Chwismas!” shouted Letty. But Marian shooed her 
out of the hall when Daddy returned. 

Dinner had caught the slight tingling mood of a spe¬ 
cial occasion. Charles was deliberately jolly, and the 
children responded in expansive delight. Excitement 
moved pleasantly into Catherine, too, in spite of her sober, 
concealed thoughts. That other dinner, ages ago, with 
the children responsive then to the contention between 
her and Charles. The friendly enclosure of the room, with 
Letty at her left, Charles across from her, the other two— 
and Mrs. O’Lay waddling in and out. Above all, Spencer, 
safely clear of that dark threat. 

“Well, it’s the first time we’ve had a jolly dinner party 
for a long time, eh, Cathy?” 

Ah, that was the thing she feared, ironically, under the 
bright surface, that Charles was building again; not a 
trap, exactly, nor a prison, but a net, a snare. This was 


LABYRINTH 


308 

to be proof, this scene, that they must have her, wholly. 
That her life dwelt only within such walls as these. That 
her desires, even, were held here. Her eyes were bright 
and troubled. 

The secret came. Ice cream and chocolate sauce. 

“Now it’s a real party,” sighed Marian, contentedly. 
“And I thought it up.” 

The telephone rang. Charles sprang to his feet, drop¬ 
ping his napkin as he hurried out. 

“Why,” asked Spencer, “does Daddy always have to 
hustle when the ’phone rings?” 

“Because he has important business, because he’s a 
man,” said Marian, promptly. 

“It might be for me.” Spencer was hopeful. 

“No!” Marian derided him. “Folks don’t telephone 
little boys.” 

Astonishing. Catherine looked at Marian’s calm pro¬ 
file. Where did she pick up her perfect feminine atti¬ 
tude? Instinct, or a parroting of some one, Miss Kelly, 
or her grandmother? 

“Catherine!” Charles was calling. “Some one wants 
you.” 

“Now! It wasn’t Daddy at all.” Spencer was tri¬ 
umphant. 

“Move along into the living room,” said Catherine, 
rising. “Mrs. O’Lay is waiting to clear the table.” 

Then, as she sat down at the desk, she had a hasty, 
random thought. Stella Partridge hadn’t called for 
Charles once these past weeks. Perhaps that hint of 
Henrietta’s—Margaret’s voice cut in. 

“Hello! You back?” Catherine settled herself com¬ 
fortably. 


IMPASSE 


309 

“Just in. Everything all right ? I’ve been talking with 
Henrietta.” 

“Yes. Really all right. Spencer had a party to-night, 
his first dinner with the family.” 

“Could I see him to-morrow?” 

“Of course. Where have you been, anyway? Mother 
was vague.” 

“Trip for the firm. To their factories in Boston and 
Pittsburgh. Cathy, what a shame your tour was inter¬ 
rupted ! When do you go back ?” 

“You mean west again?” A little shock tingled 
through Catherine, quite as if, while she looked at a group 
of familiar thoughts, an outside hand shifted the spot¬ 
light, and at once a different color lay upon them, chang¬ 
ing them. 

“You hadn’t finished the work, had you?” 

“No.” That was all Catherine could say. 

“Well, Spencer’s all right, isn’t he?” 

“Yes,” heavily from Catherine. Silence for a moment. 
Then Margaret, forcefully: 

“I’d like to come right out to-night. Don’t be a fool, 
Cathy! I know just what’s happened to you, old dear! 
Don’t you let it! But Amy’s waiting for me, and I’m 
starved.” 

Catherine stared at the round black mouthpiece. If 
she could hold that light Margaret threw over things—in 
which nothing looked the same. But she couldn’t talk. 

“I’ll expect you to-morrow, then?” she asked. 

“Yes. Early.” 

Charles was telling the children the story of the bantam 
hen he had owned when he was a little boy. Letty was 


LABYRINTH 


310 

curled up on his knees, Marian sat on the arm of his 
chair, his arm about her, Spencer had drawn his chair 
close. 

“And I used to carry her around in the pocket of my 
coat, with just her head sticking out, and her bright shiny 
eyes and her yellow bill.” 

“Yellow bill?” murmured Letty. 

“Just how big was she, Daddy?” Marian asked. 

“I’d like a hen like that,” said Spencer. 

“Some day maybe we can live in a decent place, where 
we can have hens.” 

“And a dog, Father?” 

“No, a kitty. A little gray soft kitty.” Marian looked 
anxiously at her father. “I’d much rather have a kitty, 
Daddy.” 

“We might have both”—and as Letty opened her mouth 
wide and pink for a protest—“yes, and Letty could have 
a kitty or a dog or a pet hen. Well, my bantam’s name 
was Mitty. One day-” 

Catherine stepped softly away from the door. She 
could get Letty’s bath ready. And she must transfer 
bedclothes. Spencer was to move into his own room again, 
and she had forgotten to ask Mrs. O’Lay to arrange the 
beds. 

When she went in for Letty, the story had gone on to 
a dog. Mr. Bill’s dog. Lie lived next door, Charles was 
explaining, and he was bigger than I was. His dog was 
shaggy. 

Letty, protesting, came, full of incoherencies about 
dogs and kittens and chickens. 

“Muvver, to-day Letty wants li’l dog an’ li’l kitty 
an’ li’l shickey.” 



IMPASSE 


3 ii 

“Not to-day. To-day’s over. Now you are a fish.” 
And Letty swam vigorously. Catherine stood beside her 
cot, looking down at her, fragrant, pink, beatific. A de¬ 
cent place to live in—with live things around them instead 
of city streets. A tiny, distant alarm clanged in her mind. 
That was what Charles had said, when he spoke of the 
offer at Buxton. Was he thinking about that, still? 
What was he thinking about! 

Spencer had his bath, refusing her assistance with firm 
dignity. He was silent, standing at the door of his 
own room, a thin, pajamaed figure, looking at his own 
cot. 

“You don’t need me now at night, do you?” Cath¬ 
erine turned down the covers. “Here, hop in before you 
are chilly.” 

“I liked that other bed,” said Spencer. “It’s much 
softer.” 

“Nonsense!” Catherine laughed at him, tucked him 
in, kissed his cheek softly, not looking at the pink, wrin¬ 
kled scar. “Same kind of springs. And you’re well 
now.” 

“Will you be gone in the morning, Mother?” 

His question halted her at the door. 

“No, Spencer. What made you ask that?” 

“I wanted to know.” 

She snapped off the light and closed his door. 

Then Marian was bathed; scrubbing and spluttering, 
she repeated with funny little imitations of Charles’s 
phrases, the stories about Mitty Bantam and Mr. Bill’s 
dog. 

Catherine opened the window to let the steam out of 
the bathroom, while she hung up limp towels and scrubbed 


3 12 


LABYRINTH 


out the tub and restored things to shining order. Her 
sleeve slipped down on her wet wrist, and she shoved it 
back impatiently. She’d like a drowsy, warm bath her¬ 
self, and sleep, dreamless, heavy. But Charles was wait¬ 
ing for her. The interim was over. Pushing her hair 
away from her forehead with her habitual gesture, she 
went into the living room. 

Charles looked up from his paper, smoke wreathing 
his face. 

“This has been fine,” he said, warmly. “Comfortable 
home evening.” 

Catherine sat down, brushing drops of water from her 
skirt. 

“Hasn’t it?” he urged. 

“Well—” She was staring at her hands,' blanched, 
wrinkled at the finger tips, by their long soaking. “If 
home is the bathroom!” Under her lowered eyelids she 
saw Charles watching her, guardedly. He set down his 
pipe with a click. 

“If you feel that way!” 

“Horrid of me to say it, wasn’t it?” Catherine re¬ 
laxed, her hands limp-wristed along the chair. 

“I suppose you are tired. Awful strain, these last 
weeks.” 

“Perhaps I am.” Catherine twisted sidewise in her 
chair and smiled at him. “But you look tired, too, poor 
boy. What have you been doing? I—why, I haven’t seen 
you since I came back.” 

“You certainly haven’t. But I didn’t mind. Spencer— 
well, thank God, that’s over!” 

“Yes.” Catherine discovered that she was so recently 
out from the distorting shadow of fear for Spencer that 


IMPASSE 


3*3 

as yet she could not talk about it, as if words might have 
black magic to recall the fear. 

“Damned lucky escape.’’ Charles rammed tobacco into 
the pipe bowl with his thumb. He was thrusting out 
words in bravado, without looking at Catherine. He, too, 
had lived in that fear! He sucked vigorously, drawing 
the match flame down into the pipe. “What are you 
going to do now?” 

The muscles of wrists and fingers leaped into tight 
contraction, and her hands doubled into fists against the 
chair. 

“I haven’t thought, until to-day.” Then, suddenly,— 
better pour out everything. “Nothing has changed, has 
it, now that Spencer is well?” 

“You plan to go back to the Bureau?” 

“You mean that you think I should give it up?” Cath¬ 
erine stared at the hard, jutting line of his jaw, at his 
eyes, feverish, sunken. “Charles, you can’t mean you 
blame me for Spencer’s accident?” 

“No.” He spoke sharply, denying himself. “It might 
have happened anyway. I know that.” 

“Oh!” A long, escaping sigh. “If you had blamed 
me—I couldn’t have endured it.” And then, “It’s hard, 
not to blame myself.” 

“That’s just it.” Charles moved forward, eagerly. 
“It’s frightening. I thought you might feel, well, that 
you couldn’t risk it. Leaving them. I want to be fair, 
Catherine.” 

“If you had been away, on a business trip”—Catherine 
was motionless except for the slow movement of her 
lips—“ a nd this had happened, I should have sent for you. 
Would you have blamed yourself? Or given up your 


3i4 


LABYRINTH 


work? Oh, yes, I know you’ll say that’s different. It 
isn’t so different. It wouldn’t be, if you didn’t make 
it so.” 

“Oh, my work.” He settled back into his chair. “I’ve 
got to tell you things about that. I don’t know how inter¬ 
ested you are. You’ve been engrossed.” He paused, 
but Catherine did not speak. “It does concern you! And 
it’s a frightful mess.” His eyes were haggard, angry, 
and his shoulders sagged in the chair with a curious, 
weary dejection, unlike their usual squared confidence. 
“I haven’t told you. They didn’t put me in as head of the 
clinic. The committee recognized the value of my work 
in organizing the clinic”—he was quoting, sneeringly— 
“but preferred to install a medical psychiatrist. You 
know it was decided last year, unofficially, that I was to 
be appointed the instant the funds were clear.” 

“What happened ? Who is the head ?” Pity extricated 
Catherine from her own floundering. She knew, swiftly, 
what had happened, as she remembered a sentence in that 
letter from Henrietta. 

“A Dr. Beck. What happened? The usual thing. 
The doctors in the town stirred up the usual brawl. This 
was a medical clinic. No layman could manage it. Any 
fool with a year of anatomy could do better than a spe¬ 
cialist. If you can cut off a leg or an appendix, you 
know instinctively everything about mental disorders or 
feeble-mindedness or anything else that touches psy¬ 
chology.” 

“But you had discussed that with the committee, and 
they-” 

“They agreed with me last year. But they say they 



IMPASSE 


315 

didn’t realize popular opinion. There was underhanded 
play going on before I heard about it, and the thing was 
settled. I don’t know just how. It’s that feeling—doc¬ 
tors are all wise, established powers, mystic, and we sci¬ 
entists are new. If a man can cure the measles, he knows 
more about paranoia than I know!” 

Catherine clasped her hands, pulses tingling in her 
finger tips. 

“What has happened to Miss Partridge?” she asked. 

A dull, brick-glow mounted in Charles’s face—anger, 
or humiliation. 

“Has she been ousted, too?” insisted Catherine. 

“Dr. Beck has made her his assistant.” 

“But she’s not a physician.” Catherine lifted one hand 
to her throat, pressing it against the sharp ache there. 
Poor Charles, he had been pounded. If he would only 
tell her! 

“No. But she’s shrewd enough to see where her bread 
will be nicely buttered. She makes an excellent office girl. 
She—” He was defiant, aggressive. “You didn’t ever 
like her. You’ll probably be delighted to hear that she 
saw which way the wind blew, and even added some puffs 
of her own. Queering me. Flopping over the instant 
she saw her own advantage.” 

That little squirrel smile! And the faint, distinct, 
metallic ring in her clear voice! Catherine saw her in 
the dusk of that passageway behind the gymnasium, hold¬ 
ing the brown leather bag. I’m soft, she thought, to have 
no pleasure out of this. 

“Well?” demanded Charles. “You see where it leaves 
me. All this time wasted.” 


LABYRINTH 


316 

“At least you have the material for your book.” Cath¬ 
erine was dispassionately consoling. “And you have that 
almost done.” 

“But I haven’t. It’s clinic material. I can’t publish it 
now. It belongs to them.” 

“Charles!” 

“Exactly. She did part of the work, Miss Partridge. 
She wants that for Dr. Beck. The committee wants the 
rest, for its clinic as at present established.” 

“That’s outrageous.” 

“I could put out a book from my own notes. But it 
wouldn’t mean anything. No authority behind it. No, 
I’m done with them. Done.” 

“At least”—Catherine felt slowly for words—“you 
have your university work. That’s the main thing. That 
hasn’t been touched.” 

“Hasn’t it, though?” Charles was grim. “When I’ve 
spent all this time, on the score of a great contribution I 
was about to make!” 

“Does it hang up your promotion?” Catherine cried 
out. 

“It does. I heard that this morning, indirectly.” 

Catherine pulled herself to her feet and stood beside 
him, hesitantly brushing his hair, moving her finger down 
to the deep crease between his eyes. 

“See here,” she said, lightly. “You aren’t so done for 
as all that. You know it.” 

He thrust his arm violently around her, drew her down 
to the arm of the chair, his head pressing into her 
shoulder. 

“And you weren’t here!” he cried. “There was no 


one 



IMPASSE 


3i7 


“Poor boy.” Her hand touched his head, softly, sensi¬ 
tive to the crispness of his heavy hair. 

“You haven’t cared what happened to me.” His words 
came muffled. . 

“Oh, haven’t I ?” Her fingers crept down to his cheek. 
“Perhaps I have.” 

“Haven’t shown it much.” He lifted his face from 
her shoulder. 

In the instant before she bent to kiss him, there was a 
scurry of thoughts through her mind—leaves lifted in a 
puff of wind: He is contrite about Stella Partridge. He 
can’t say that he is. He thinks I don’t know about her. 
No use in airing that. He is through, and unhappy, and 
I love him. 

“Let’s not talk any more to-night,” she said. “Lots of 
days coming to talk in. Spencer is well, and we are here, 
together.” 

IX 

A square, rimmed in solid black, of something full of 
distant, colorless clarity. Not quite colorless, since an 
intense turquoise-blue seemed to move far behind it, like 
a wave. Catherine stared. She had come awake so sud¬ 
denly that she could only see that square at first, without 
knowledge of it. Then, as suddenly, she knew. It was 
the sky, over the black rim of the opposite wall of the 
court, with window edges for its frame. Almost morn¬ 
ing. What a strange dream, digging, trying to push the 
spade down through roots of dead grass, while someone 
kept saying, “Make it larger. That won’t hold her.” 
Had Spencer called out? Fully awake, she lifted herself 
on an elbow. The house was quiet. She could see dimly 


318 LABYRINTH 

between her and the window the dark mound of Charles’s 
head on his pillow. 

That queer dream. As she lay down again, she had 
it, in a swift flash of association. The Actinidia vine! 
Bury an old hen at its roots, she had told Bill. She was 
digging, for herself. Oh, grotesque! 

And yet, before she had slept, she had not thought of 
herself. She had worked patiently, tenderly, to restore 
Charles. She could hear him, humble, “You mean that, 
Cathy? You think this isn’t a horrible failure? I couldn’t 
prevent it, could I? After all—” and gradually she had 
drawn him clear of his forlorn dejection. 

The patch of sky grew opaque, white. Morning. 

There is no wall between us now, she thought. That 
is down. Love—tenderness—strength—sweet, fiery, ec¬ 
stasy—all that he wished. Surely he would, in turn—lift 
her—into her whole self. 


X 

Charles had taken the children out for a Sunday after¬ 
noon walk. They wanted Catherine, too. 

“The air will do you good, if you are tired,” urged 
Charles. 

“But Margaret is coming in.” Catherine stretched 
lazily in her chair. “And I don’t want to budge.” 

Charles had gone, resignation in his voice as he cor¬ 
ralled the children out of the door. Catherine closed her 
eyes. She was eager to see Margaret, and yet a little 
afraid. She was too like an old scrap bag crammed with 
thoughts and feelings, tangled, unsorted; and Margaret 


IMPASSE 319 

would want to shake out the bag, sweeping away the jum¬ 
ble of contents. 

Charles had said, that morning, “Queer, how down I 
felt yesterday. That pork roast Friday night was too 
heavy. Tell Mrs. O’Lay, will you, to go easy on the 
pork.” And then, hastily, “Talking things out with you 
cleared the air, too. I can see I’d had an exaggerated line 
on them. I have a plan I want to talk over, some time 
soon.” 

Charles, restored, could call his malady pork! At the 
same time—Catherine rose hastily as the bell clattered. 
At the same time, she thought, walking down the hall, 
there had been gratitude, hidden, unspoken, and release 
in the feeling between them. That feeling was the air 
itself, intangible, invisible, but holding all these other 
things of shape or solidity. Charles was himself again, 
confident, assured, almost boisterous. 

Margaret pounced at her, shook her gently, hugged her, 
marched her back to the living room. 

“Fine! Everyone else is out. Now I can bully you.” 
She dragged off her gloves. “You look as if you needed 
it, too,” she said. She leaned forward abruptly and 
touched Catherine’s hand. “Spencer! Oh, it has been 
awful, I know,” and surprisingly her eyes grew brilliant 
with tears. “But he’s honestly not hurt, is he ? Henrietta 
swore he wasn’t.” 

“Honestly all right,” said Catherine. 

“I wanted to come back, but Henry wired me I couldn’t 
do a thing. So I stuck to the job.” She moved rest¬ 
lessly. “And Henry swears there’s no danger of any 
future complication. I worried about that. Spencer’s not 
the sort I want changed by any knock on his head.” 


320 


LABYRINTH 


‘‘No.” Catherine shivered. “They all say there is 
absolutely no danger.” 

“Well.” Margaret was silent a moment. 

She had to say that, to be rid of it, thought Catherine. 

“But I know what you’ve been up to.” Margaret’s 
tears were gone. “Wallowing in sentimental regrets. 
Listening to mother suggests that you must surely see 
your duty now. And the King, too! Just when I was 
so proud of you, and using you for an example of 
what a woman really could do, could amount to, and 
everything.” She laughed. “Don’t be a renegade, 
Cathy.” 

“Pity to spoil your example, huh?” 

“Exactly. Have you seen your boss since you came 
back ? I thought not. Cathy, go and see him. Dress up 
and go down to your office. Drag yourself out of your 
home, sweet home, long enough to remember how you 
felt. If you’ll promise that, I won’t say another word. 
Psychological and moral effect, that’s all.” 

“I don’t want to see him until I make up my mind.” 

“It isn’t your mind you are making up. It’s”—Mar¬ 
garet waved her hand—“it’s your sentiment tank. Oh, I 
know. I have a soft heart, myself, Catherine.” 

“There’s another thing.” Margaret had turned her 
upside down, as she had feared, and she was hunting 
feverishly in the scattered contents of her scrapbag self. 
“Charles.” Reticence obscured her. “He’s been disap¬ 
pointed about that clinic. He does need-” 

“Anybody,” declared Margaret with quick violence, 
“anybody needs somebody else loving ’em, smoothing ’em 
down, setting ’em up, brushing off the dust. I know! But 
you can do that anyway. That just goes on-” 




IMPASSE 


321 

"I wonder. You’re a hard-boiled spinster, Margaret. 
What do you know about it?” 

“I know a little thing or two about love. You do it all 
the time, through and around whatever else you are 
doing. Not from nine to five exclusively.” She settled 
back, a grimace on her lips, as the door rattled open and 
Letty’s piping was heard. “Didn’t stay long, did he? 
You promise me you’ll go down to the Bureau. Quick! 

Or I’ll fight with the King like a-” 

“Yes, I’ll go down.” Catherine laughed. “I’d have to 
anyway.” 

And Margaret, smiling at her, ran out to meet 
Spencer. 


XI 

Catherine sat at the dining-room table, staring down at 
the straggling columns of figures on the sheet of yellow 
paper. Her mouth was sullen, mutinous. Mrs. O’Lay 
came through the hall, her broom swishing behind her. 
She had been redding up the study, and Catherine had 
moved her bookkeeping into the dining room. Well, there 
it was. Appalling totals. Bills and bills and bills. She 
ran her fingers across the ragged edges of her check¬ 
book stub. No hope there. Then her hand crept past the 
bills to a long white envelope, bearing the Bureau in¬ 
scription in one corner. Her check in full for the month, 
as if she had stayed in Ohio and finished the job. 
Charles’s eyebrows, lifted inquiringly when Miss Kelly 
had appeared that morning, seemed to arch across her 
name on that envelope. She had only to take out that slip 
of paper, scrawl her name and “on deposit” across the 



3 22 


LABYRINTH 


back, and she was committed. Last night—Charles cling¬ 
ing to her hand—“It’s wonderful, Cathy, having things 
right again. Don’t spoil them.” And she cravenly had 
kept silence. 

She looked again at the final figures in her check book. 
Tiny, impotent sum. Her mind busily added to them the 
figures of the check. But she couldn’t take it, unless she 
meant to go on. Dr. Roberts intended it as an indication 
of her permanence, a check for the full month, when she 
had worked only half of it. Her fingers rested on the 
slip. The bills, the paltry little balance, worked on her in 
a sort of desperate fever. 

I’d have to give up Mrs. O’Lay, too, she thought, 
to even things. There’ll be doctors’ bills. That 
surgeon. Everything’s overdrawn. Have to tell Miss 
Kelly. 

She saw herself vividly walking that treadmill. Poor 
Charles; he had expected some release, financially, from 
the clinic and his book. Wonderful, having things right 
—don’t spoil them. 

She rose quickly, bunching together the devastating bits 
of paper. She had to see Dr. Roberts, at least. No use 
trying to think. Her mind was a jellyfish. Perhaps if 
she saw him, and talked with him, something with a back¬ 
bone would rise up to rout the jellyfish. 

“I may not be in for luncheon,” she told Mrs. O’Lay. 
“But you can manage.” 

“Sure, you look elegant.” Mrs. O’Lay replaced the 
cover on her kettle of soup. “An’ a breath of air will do 
your heart good.” 

It did, Catherine discovered. She had been housed too 
long. Clear, bright, gusty, with bits of paper swirling 


IMPASSE 


323 


along the stone wall of the Drive, and sharp white wave 
edges rushing across the river. Too cold for the top of 
the bus. She watched the river through the window, and 
then the shops on the side streets. She was empty, except 
for bits of external things touching her eyes. Straw hats 
in the windows, and bright feathers; why, spring would 
come, soon. 

The elevator boy grinned at her widely, ducking his 
bullet head. 

“How’do. Ain’t seen you round here for quite some 
time.” 

That old thrill of belonging to the building—that 
woman in furs stepping off at the dentist’s floor was eying 
her curiously—the thrill of expanding into part of this 
complicated, intricate, impersonal life. 

Her office again, long, narrow, caging the sunlight be¬ 
tween its shelved walls, and the stenographer rising in a 
little flurry. ‘Til call Dr. Roberts. He was expecting 
you, I think.” 

Catherine looked out of her window. No one in the 
fitting room opposite; she could see the sweep of draped 
fabrics. 

“Mrs. Hammond! I am delighted to see you.” 

Dr. Roberts bustled toward her, his bearded face cor¬ 
dial, his gestures animated, fidgety. “I wondered how 
soon you would be in. I should have called you soon. 
Your little boy has recovered?” 

“Yes.” Catherine sat down. 

“Such a pity. Poor little chap. And calling you back. 
I must tell you how admirable your investigation is. 
We’ve had several letters from people whom you met. 
You handled them admirably, interested them without 


324 LABYRINTH 

antagonizing them. Well, you are ready now to finish 
the tour?” 

“You have sent no one else?” Catherine was cold. 
That jellyfish in her head was a flabby lump left by the 
tide. 

“No. I want you to go back.” His eyes, small, keen, 
searched hers. 

She sighed faintly. 

“I can’t do it.” She was startled at the finality in her 
own words. “I can’t go away, Dr. Roberts. Not—again.” 

He showed no surprise. 

“Your letters,” he suggested. “They sounded enthusi¬ 
astic.” 

“It was fascinating.” There was pain in the folding 
down of her long eyelids. “But I can’t go away. I—” 
she smiled briefly. “I’ve lost my nerve. I can’t risk what 
might happen.” 

“The children, you mean?” 

“Yes.” 

“Um. A pity. Accidents happen, anyway. But of 
course you have thought of that.” He drummed busily 
with his fingers along the desk. 

Catherine straightened her shoulders. She could think 
clearly now; evidently the jellyfish had existed just for 
that one decision. 

“I had hoped there wouldn’t be a chance for me to go 
away again. I thought you might have sent someone 
else, and that you’d want me here in the office. You See— 
the glimpse I had of the real colleges gives enormous 
vitality to all these catalogues. I’d like to go on, if I 
could do it right here.” 

When had she thought that? Astonishing, the way 



IMPASSE 


325 

ideas burst out from some deep level, and you recognized 
them as authentic. 

“A pity.” Dr. Roberts clasped his hands, twisting his 
fingers in and out. Here’s the church, and here’s the 
steeple, thought Catherine, as if she played the finger 
game for Letty. “I was afraid of it. But if you will 
come back, handle the work here—I like the way you 
write up the material.” He clapped one palm on the 
desk. “Let me think it over. I suppose I might finish the 
trip myself. I am free now—those meetings have come 
off.” 

“There’s this check.” Catherine took it out of her 
handbag. “For a month, at the new rate.” 

“I think that will be satisfactory. It’s gone into the 
budget, your salary, I mean. I don’t think the President 
will suggest cutting it. Not if I make the trip myself. 
Let me think it over. No, the check is yours.” 

Just after twelve, by the jeweler’s sidewalk clock. She 
could reach home for luncheon. But she didn’t want to! 
She turned out of the entrance and moved along, grace¬ 
ful, deliberate, toward the cross street and Amy’s 
club. 

The housekeeper nodded to her. There were women 
in a group near the fire, one or two heads turning toward 
her; no one there who knew her. She sat alone at a small 
yellow table in a corner of the dining room. She was 
earlier than her usual hour. That was why she saw none 
of the women she had talked with. She did recognize 
several of the faces. Bits of gossip collected about them, 
highly colored pieces of personal comment, which Amy 
had thrown off in her intense, throaty voice. That woman 


LABYRINTH 


3 2 6 

who was just seating herself, dropping her heavy, squir¬ 
rel-lined great coat over her chair, was a successful 
physician; makes thirty thousand at least. Has to have 
a young thing adoring her—yes, there’s the present young 
thing, with a sleek bobbed head like a child's, and round, 
serious eyes. Secretary, housekeeper, chauffeur, slave! 
Catherine could hear Amy’s satiric list. And the two 
women at the table beyond. Catherine bent over her 
salad, while the women in the room retreated to some 
great distance, carrying the bits of gossip like cockle- 
burrs stuck to their garments. It’s funny, thought Cath¬ 
erine. I never saw it before. But it is always how they 
love—how they live—not what they think. Even when 
Amy talks about them. Even these women. 

Her thoughts ran on, clearly. She had wished to lunch 
there, because she needed something to orient herself, to 
deliver her out of the smother of her life and all its subtle, 
intimate pressures of love. She wanted to see women in 
terms of some cold, dignified, outer achievement. And 
instead, her mind clattered about them with tales of their 
lovers, their husbands, their emotional bondage. 

Well, was that her fault, her own prepossession? Or 
Amy’s? From Amy had come these irritating recollec¬ 
tions. Or was it that women were like that, summed up 
in personal emotions? She drew on her gloves and left 
the dub rooms. 

She would walk up the Avenue and across Central 
Park. They were having lunch at home, now, Charles, 
the children. Sometimes in walking her feet seemed to 
tread thoughts into smoothness; or the swinging rhythm 
of her body shook some inner clarity up through confused 
imaiges where she could see it, could lay hold of it. 


IMPASSE 


3 2 7 

What was she trying to think about, anyway? Women? 
Herself? Herself and Charles. And the children. 

Men had personal lives, too. But didn’t they make 
them, or try to make them, comfortable, assured, sus¬ 
taining, so that they could leave them? Find them when 
they came back? And women having had nothing else, 
still centered there? She stopped in a block of traffic, 
looking about with eyes strained and vague. 

Petulant, smug faces above elegant furs. Hard streaks 
of carmine for lips. Faces with broad peasant foreheads, 
with beak noses. Faces- 

The rush carried her across the street. Letty and 
Marian, her daughters, growing up. 

If I knuckle under now, she thought, what of them? 
She could feel them pressing against her, Letty’s silky 
head under her throat, Marian’s firm, slim body against 
her arm. What I do can’t matter very much, directly, to 
them. They have to live, themselves. She was humble, 
feeling their individualness, their growth as a curious 
progression of miracles in which she was merely an inci¬ 
dental tool. Women devote themselves to their fam¬ 
ilies, so that their daughters may grow up and devote 

themselves to their families, so that- Catherine 

laughed. Some one has to break through that circle, she 
thought. 

She entered the Park, walking more slowly along the 
winding path. If she had only sons—the thought of 
Spencer stood up like a straight candle flame in her 
murky drifting—that would be different. There was her 
own mother. Catherine could see her, being wheeled along 
the beach at Atlantic City, with her friend, Alethea, on 
a little holiday to recover from the shock of Spencer’s 




328 LABYRINTH 

accident. How does she manage it, that poise of hers, that 
sufficiency ? 

The walk had come to a cluster of animal houses. 
Catherine looked about her, and on a sudden whim went 
past the attendant into the monkey house. The warm, 
acid, heavy odor affronted her. She didn't want to be 
here. Years ago she had come in, before she married. 
She turned to go, and met the melancholy flat stare of a 
small gray monkey. The animal clung to the bars of 
the cage with one hand, the long, naked fingers moving 
restlessly, and looked at Catherine, while the fingers of 
the other hand dug pensively into the fur of her breast. 
Catherine felt her heart pause; she had a sensation of 
white excitement, as if she hung poised over an abyss of 
infinite knowledge, comprehension. A second monkey 
swung chattering across the cage and dropped from the 
bar, grabbing at the tail of the monkey that stared, and 
the moment was gone. Catherine went hastily out into 
the clear, sweet air. I hate them, she muttered, and hur¬ 
ried away across the brown, dead stretches of park. But 
she could not escape the vivid recollection of that earlier 
visit, years ago. She had seen then a female monkey 
nursing her young, and the pathos of the close-set un¬ 
winking eyes over the tiny furry thing had made the 
curve of long monkey arm a symbol of protective mother 
instinct. 

They’re too like us. That’s why I hate them. And 
then, fiercely, men have climbed out of that. Some ways. 
But they want to keep us monkey women. Loving our 
mate and children. Nothing else. 

She came presently to a stretch of water at the other 
side of the park, and stopped a moment on the shore. 


IMPASSE 


3 2 9 

Blue, quiet, with long black reflections of trees from the 
opposite bank. 

My mind has made itself up, she thought. Her pallor 
and sullenness had given place to an intense vitality in her 
wide, dark eyes, in the curve of her mouth. It isn’t selfish¬ 
ness, nor egoism, this hankering of mine. It’s more than 
that. PH tell Charles—she laughed softly, out of the 
wholeness of her release from doubt—I’ll tell him that 
I can’t be a monkey woman. He’ll help me. He must 
help me. 

XII 

She waited until the children were asleep and the house 
was quiet. Then she knocked at the study door, behind 
which Charles sat, working on a lecture. She scarcely 
waited for his “Come” but went in swiftly, closing the 
door. 

“Most through work?” She drew a small chair near 
his desk. “Why, you aren’t working.” His desk was 
orderly, bare. 

“Not just now.” Charles leaned back. “I—” he hesi¬ 
tated. “You look stunning in that get-up,” he finished. 

“Yes?” Catherine’s smile lingered. “It’s not the 
get-up. It’s me, inside.” 

“Handsome wife.” Charles touched her fingers, 
spreading them wide between his own fingers, crumpling 
them together in a sudden violent squeeze. Then he 
leaned back again. “Just been thinking about you,” he 
said. 

“Yes? So’ve I.” Vivacity in Catherine’s voice, her 
gesture, a vivacity which had true life from deep inner 
light, not an external manner. “I wanted to talk to you.” 


33 ° 


LABYRINTH 


“I’ve been wanting to talk things over with you.” 
Charles looked away from her somberly. “For some 
time.” 

“It’s about next year,” continued Charles slowly, and 
Catherine thought, I’ll leave the monkeys out, at first. 
“Our plans, you know.” 

Something arrested Catherine at the edge of speech, 
something like the damp finger of air from a cellar. 

“I should have brought it up before you went down¬ 
town,” he was saying. “You were down this morning, 
weren’t you?” 

She nodded. 

“I didn’t realize you were going. And anyway, to-day 
sort of brought matters to a head.” 

“Yes?” 

“Well, it’s my job. I went in to see the Head, to-day.” 
Charles faced her, his eyes deprecating. “You gave me 
nerve to do that, Cathy. I’d been knocked so confound¬ 
edly hard—but I felt better to-day. That’s you.” Cath¬ 
erine’s hands clung together in her lap. “I wanted to 
have exact data on where I stood. The trouble is, this 
place is too big. I mean the institution, not my own 
job. There are too many men eager for a foothold. The 
Chief was rather fine about it—about my work, espe¬ 
cially. Praised it. You know. But he said I’d stepped 
somewhat out of rank, going abroad. Two men are ahead 
of me, in line for promotion. Can’t have too many pro¬ 
fessors. Isn’t room. All that guff, you know what it is.” 
Charles brought his fist down on the desk. “I should 
like to get to a place where I can march ahead as fast as 
I can go. I talked over the whole situation with him, 
including the Buxton offer.” His eyes were suddenly 


IMPASSE 331 

wary, inquisitive. “You remember that, of course? And 
he agreed with me.” 

“He advised you to leave the University?” Catherine 
heard her own voice, like a thin wire. 

“He agreed that the chance for advancement, for future 
accomplishment, lay there rather than here.” 

“And you wish to go?” 

“I had another letter to-day from the president there. 
It's a remarkable place, Cathy. Small, but endowed to 
the neck. A few of those small colleges are, you know. 
I'd have the entire department in my hands, with freedom 
to work out anything I liked. They want a strong de¬ 
partment. Want a good man to build it up.” His wari¬ 
ness, his searching of her face had dropped away in a 
rush of genuine enthusiasm. His words ran on, building 
the picture, his work, his opportunity. Then he switched, 
suddenly. “And the place is fine, too. Pretty little town, 
college community. Wonderful place for the children. 
The other night, as I told them about my childhood, I 
felt we had no right to imprison them here. It isn't 
decent. Shut up in a city, when they are just growing 
up. Do you think so? All this awful struggle to stretch 
our income, too. That would be over. More salary, 
almost twice as much. Living conditions infinitely better. 
Pleasant people to live near.” 

“When you got your appointment at the University 
here, you thought it was perfect. The institution, the 
city. Do you remember how you felt?” 

“It did seem so, didn't it? But you have to watch a 
thing work out.” 

“You are sure you are judging Buxton fairly, and not 
in the light of what's happened in the clinic?” 


332 


LABYRINTH 


“I’ve been thinking about it for months. I spoke about 

it in the fall-” He stopped suddenly, and Catherine 

saw the phantom that he had evoked: his own voice, 
harsh, “I think I’ll take that Buxton offer, just to get you 
out of town,” and her own answer, thrown back as she 
fled, “You’d have to be sure I would go!” 

“I can’t decide it alone,” he went on hastily. “I’m just 
trying to show you how it looks to me.” 

“But you have decided.” Her effort to keep her voice 
steady flattened all its intonations. “Decided that it is 
much the best thing for your career, much the best for the 
children.” 

“I can’t drag you off unless you wish to go. I hoped 
you would like it, too. It—well, it is something of an 
honor, you know. The way they keep after me. There’s a 
large appropriation for a laboratory. I’d have very little 
teaching. They seem to have some idea of a creative 
department.” 

Catherine was silent. There was something shaking 
and ludicrous, in the way that courageous light of after¬ 
noon had been snuffed out. Why, she had thought she 
stood at last in a clear road, where she could be sure of 
direction, and here she was only at the core of the laby¬ 
rinth again, knocked blindly into an angle of blind wall. 

“Catherine!” he cried out against her silence. “If it 
wasn’t for this damned idea of yours, you’d care what 
happened to me!” 

Whirling about in the lane of her labyrinth, shutting 
her eyes to its maze. “I do care, Charles. That’s the 
trouble.” 

“After all, it’s not just me. It’s the children and you, 
isn’t it?” He fiddled with the blotter, shoved it along 



IMPASSE 


333 

the desk. “I think it will be infinitely better for you, 
too.” His chin was obdurate. “New York is no place. 
Overstimulates you. At a place like Buxton, life is more 
normal. There’s a woman’s Faculty Club,” he added, 
triumphantly. 

Catherine laughed. 

“Teas?” she said, “or literary afternoons?” 

“They’re fine women. Cathy, don’t laugh. I hoped 
you would like it.” 

“Like it?” She flung out her hands, sensitive, empty 
palms upwards. “I’ve just been there! I know what it 
is like. But I know”—she was sober again—“why, 
there’s nothing for me to do but say yes, is there ? I can’t 
say that Buxton offers me no opportunity, except to be a 
monkey woman, can I?” 

“What?” 

“Nothing.” She doubled a fist against her mouth, and 
stared at him. 

“You’ve been so sweet these last days.” Charles 
reached for her hand, held it between both of his. 
“Things were ghastly mixed up, and then we seemed 
straight again, you and I. You know everything’s been 
wrong since you first took that damned office job. I can’t 
stand it! Our yapping at each other. I hoped you would 
want to throw it over. I do care about your being happy. 
Cathy, if you believe, honestly, that it’s more important 
that you should stay here, I’ll try to see it that way.” 

Her hand was reluctant, cold, in the warm, steady pres¬ 
sure of his. 

“I can’t believe it, alone.” The labyrinth shut her in, 
black, enclosing. “You’d have to believe it, yourself. 
And you don’t.” 


334 


LABYRINTH 


“It’s different, considering the children, too, as well as 
you and me. What you do, in an office, takes you away 
from me. What I do, Cathy, that is yours, too, isn’t it?” 

His fingers crept up about her wrist; beneath them her 
life beat in heavy, slow rhythm. 

“It knocks the stuffing fairly out of everything, if I 
think you don’t care.” 

“Yes. It does that for me, too.” Catherine smiled at 
him in a flicker of mockery. She caught a faint slacken¬ 
ing of his fingers. Stella Partridge! But she knew, 
even in the impulse to have that out, to insist upon it as 
part of the winter, that it was better left untouched. In¬ 
tangible, incomplete, a kind of subtle aberration, it would 
dissolve more quickly unexpressed. 

“I’d be a beast to say I wouldn’t go. A perverted, 
selfish wife. Wouldn’t I? I can’t be that. I’m too soft. 
Charles, I do desire for you every chance-” 

“You’re not soft. You’re really fine. You-” He 

jumped to his feet. “And when we get out there, you’ll 
see. You’ll like it! Lots of things for you to do. You 
will be happy, Cathy. I’ll make you happy.” 

Catherine, leaning back in her chair, lifted her face to 
look up at him. She heard in his voice the shouting down 
of fear; he had been worried, then. He had not been 
sure. 


XIII 

Catherine sat on the window sill, looking down at the 
shadows which slanted across the tree tops of Morning- 
side. In the distance roofs still glittered in the afternoon 
sunlight. Beneath her the spring leaves were delicate and 




IMPASSE 


335 

small, keeping their own fine shape, not yet making green 
masses. A little easterly breeze touched her warm cheek, 
and she thought, leaning from the window, that she 
sniffed in it the faint piquancy of Balm of Gilead buds. 
The last trunk was banging down the hall, its thuds like 
muttered profanities. 

She turned back to the dismantled rooms. How queer 
they looked, small, dingy, worn. Mrs. O’Lay, in the 
kitchen, was assuring Charles: “Sure and you needn’t 
worry yourself about that, Mr. Hammond. I’ll clear out 
every stick. Them little things I’ve saved for myself. I 
can make use of them.” 

She was cramming things into the dumbwaiter. Cath¬ 
erine could hear the rustling of waste paper. 

Catherine stood up, cautiously. She was stiff, almost 
dizzy, as if she had bent so long over packing boxes and 
trunks that her head couldn’t without penalty be held 
upright. Well, it was done. Incredible and astonishing, 
that the disorder and confusion had come to an end. 

“All ready, dear?” Charles stood in the doorway, but¬ 
toning his coat, patting his tie into place. “About time 
we got off.” 

“Be sure there is nothing left.” Catherine went slowly 
through the rooms, listening to the walls return her foot¬ 
steps emptily. 

In the kitchen Mrs. O’Lay poked among the salvage, 
bundles, piles, an old black hat of Catherine’s mounted 
rakishly on a box of breakfast food, a dingy cotton duck 
of Letty’s, limp from loss of stuffing. 

“I’ll finish up here, Mis’ Hammond.” The broad red 
face was creased into downward wrinkles. “Sure, an’ I 
hate to see the end of you,” she said. “It's fine for you 


336 LABYRINTH 

you got a tenant to come in right away, but we’ll miss 
you.” 

“Taxi, Catherine!” shouted Charles. 

“Good-by, God love you!” Mrs. O’Lay waved her out 
of the apartment onto the elevator. 

“Well, we certainly got things off in great style, eh?” 
Charles beside her in the cab, the bags stowed at their 
feet, had his erect, briskly managing air. “Everything 
done, and time for dinner before your train.” 

Catherine was sunk in a lethargy of weariness; dimly 
she still sorted, packed, gave directions. 

“You know, I forgot about the gas deposit.” She 
emerged frantically from her lethargy. “Five dollars!” 

“I’ll see to it. Where’s the receipt?” 

“Let’s see—in that envelope. I’ll mail it to you. It 
was good of mother to take the children until train time, 
wasn’t it?” Catherine sighed. 

“I tell you, it was a lucky thing we got the apartment 
off our hands before fall.” Charles patted her knee 
cheerfully. “Awful job, if we’d had to pack up at the 
end of the summer.” 

“Awful job any time!” 

“Oh, well, a week in Maine will make you forget it all. 
Especially with the rent off our chests.” 

“You’ll surely come in three weeks?” 

“Positively. That finishes up everything. And I’ll 
have to get away then if I’m to have any vacation. Say, 
be sure to tell old Baker he’s got to take me down to the 
ledges for some real fishing. I haven’t fished for two 
years, except for flounders.” 

“And Buxton the first of August?” 

“Be hot there in August, won’t it? Well, I’ll have to 


IMPASSE 


337 

go then. But I can find a house for us, and sort of learn 
the ropes before you blow in.” 

“I wonder-” Catherine’s brows met in a deep 

wrinkle. “I can't remember which trunk I put the 
blankets in, and the linen. Hope they aren’t labeled 
Buxton!” 

“Oh, you got them where they belong. Don’t fuss, I 
tell you. You let me drop you at the Gilberts’ now, and 
I’ll go on to the station. I can check these things, and 
that will give you a few minutes to rest.” 

“I don’t care where you drop me.” Catherine laughed. 
“All my poor mind does is to hunt for things in those 
trunks and boxes.” 

“You might as well stop worrying. They’re settled.” 

Catherine stood at the entrance to the hotel, watching 
the taxi jerk its way along with the traffic. Charles’s 
hand lay on the opened window, a resolute, capable fist. 
Every one was going home. Home from work. Shop 
girls in gay tweeds, already faded across the shoulders; 
sallow, small men in baggy trousers, with bits of lint 
sticking to them, from the lofts where they sewed—per¬ 
haps on more gay tweed suits, or beaded silk dresses for 
the trade. Moist, pale faces, with a startled, worn expres¬ 
sion, as if the warmth of the day surprised and exhausted 
the city dwellers. And in Maine—a sharp visual image 
of pointed firs reflected in clear water, with a luminous 
twilight sky behind dark branches. 

“Ought to be glad I’m going,” she thought. “Instead 
of spending the summer here, with these people. And the 
children—I couldn’t keep them here. Could I!” 

Henrietta’s maid admitted her to the quiet, orderly liv- 



LABYRINTH ‘ 


338 

ing room. Dr. Gilbert was in her office. She would be 
free soon. Catherine sat down at the window, looking 
idly out at the great steel framework which shadowed the 
room. How long ago she had looked down into pits of 
water and uncouth shapes of cranes ! New Year’s Day. 
And Henry had said, “You’d be a fool not to go.” 

The methodical arrangement of the room was restful, 
sane, after the hurly-burly of the last week. Distressing 
that confusion could so fray the edges of yourself. She 
closed her eyes, relaxing into a kind of blankness. 

She opened them presently, to find Henrietta in the 
doorway, staring through her eyeglasses, her mouth firm 
and compassionate. 

“Hello!” Catherine moved hastily erect. “Don’t turn 
that professional stare on me. I won’t have it.” 

“Hoped you were asleep.” Henrietta came in. “Bill 
hasn’t shown up yet. Perhaps we’d better go down to the 
dining room. Your train is so beastly early. Where’s 
Charles ?” 

“Checking the trunks. He’ll be in soon.” 

As they waited for the elevator, Catherine turned sud¬ 
denly upon Henrietta. 

“You know, Henry, I appreciate your not telling me 
what you think. I suppose you’re disgusted, and you 
haven’t said a word. Not since I told you we were 
going.” 

“Not disgusted.” Henrietta thrust her eyeglasses be¬ 
tween the buttons of her jacket. “I’ve been rather cut 
up about it. But it’s your affair. I don’t see that you 
could do anything else. Not now, at any rate.” 

“Perhaps some women could. I can’t.” 

“Women can’t alone.” Henrietta sounded violent. 


IMPASSE 


339 

“Not without men helping them. Being willing to help 
them. So long as their own affairs come first-” 

The door of the elevator swung open. 

“When Mr. Gilbert comes in, tell him we are at dinner. 
And Mr. Hammond, too.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

Henrietta nodded to the waiter, who led them into an 
alcove off the main dining room. 

“Quiet in here.” Henrietta settled herself briskly. 
Catherine was thinking: Henrietta manages her life so 
that things, mere things, never get in her way—laundry, 
or food, or packing. “I wanted to see you make a go 
of it,” said Henrietta. “You’re so darned intelligent. 
It’s the children, I know. If it weren’t for them, you could 
stay here. If you would. Probably Charles would pull 

you along by a heartstring even then. Now, Bill- 

But I’ll let him speak for himself. He has some 
news.” 

“Perhaps”—Catherine did not glance up—“perhaps, 
Henry, I’ve just been knocked flat at the end of the first 
round. Who knows? I may get my wind back—in 
Buxton.” 

f 

“What can you do in a country town?” 

Catherine did not answer; Charles was coming toward 
them, buoyant, touched with excitement, and behind him, 
Bill. Charles tucked the checks into her purse. 

“I’ll mail these others to the Dean,” he said. “Great 
place we’re going to. The Dean himself has offered to 
see to our chattels. Going to store them in some building 
on the campus until we come. Real human beings in 
Buxton!” 

Catherine looked silently at Bill, as he took her hand 




LABYRINTH 


340 

for a brief moment. She hadn’t seen him for weeks; he 
had been out of town again. His glance was grave, a 
little pleased. 

“Tell them your news, Bill.” 

“Oh”—he shook out his napkin—“Fm off to South 
America next week, to build a bridge.” 

Henrietta explained. Huge engineering project, throw¬ 
ing a link across mountains, a road for commerce. Diffi¬ 
cult enough to interest even a clam like Bill. 

Catherine listened rather vaguely; Bill was moving his 
knife, his salt, his roll, to illustrate. Saves hundreds of 
miles in shipping, you see, if the thing can be done. A 
straight line from the interior. 

“How long will it take?” 

“Can’t tell exactly until I see the ground. Perhaps a 
year. Or longer.” 

Catherine flung her glance at Henrietta, and found her 
watching Bill, her blue eyes calmly reflective. Not a 
trace of dispute, not a faint echo of bitterness, although 
Henrietta was looking less at Bill than back into whatever 
secret, intimate hour of decision lay behind the present 
announcement. This was what Henrietta had meant. 
That Bill would go alone if he wished, not for an instant 
expecting Henrietta to drop her life and follow. 

“And you’re just staying here?” Charles was na'ive, 
surprised. 

“Naturally.” Henrietta grinned at him. “I can’t move 
my practice. It’s a long time, but perhaps one of us 
can wriggle in a vacation.” 

“Well!” Charles leaned back. “If my wife-” he 

broke off, suspiciously. 

“Henrietta might reasonably object to being deserted,” 



IMPASSE 341 

said Bill quietly. “But she’s good enough to see why I 
wish to go.” 

Charles paused an instant over that, and then with a 
shrug came out on clear, safe ground with a question 
about the work. Catherine listened. She was tired. Her 
thoughts crawled obscurely, undirected, in a fog of weari¬ 
ness. Charles would pull her along by a heartstring, 
Henrietta said. Probably. She lacked that cold single¬ 
ness which Henrietta kept. But Bill never tried to pull 
Henry by a heartstring. He hid away from her. 

“You’re not eating a thing, Cathy,” said Henrietta. 
“Too much packing, I suppose. I hope you’ll loaf for 
a while. Do you have the same woman who took us for 
peddlers ?” 

“I think so.” Catherine stared out of her fog. 

“Amelia will have the house opened and ready. Cath¬ 
erine can loaf all summer.” Charles was hearty, assured. 
“It’s been a hard winter, some ways.” 

The talk went on, with coffee and cheese, and Catherine 
drifted again in her fog. Perhaps one person always 
hides away. Bill had said something about that, once. 
In every combination of people, one hides. But if you 
hide away, then you shouldn’t sulk. Play fair. 

Dinner was over. Time to go. Henrietta, regretfully, 
explained that she couldn’t go to the station. A case. 
Bill would walk over. 

“I shall miss you, Cathy.” They stood at the entrance 
of the hotel. “And the children. Bill gone, too. I’ll 
have to work like fury.” 

“You must come out to Buxton when we’re settled. 
Take a week off.” Charles glanced at his watch, edged 
toward the street. 


342 


LABYRINTH 


“I may.” Henrietta’s lips, firm and cool, touched 
Catherine’s. “Good-by.” 

“We’d better walk fast,” said Charles. “I have to get 
the bags out of the parcel room.” 

“Want a taxi?” Bill lifted his hand, but Catherine 
refused. 

“It’s only three blocks. Let’s walk.” 

At the corner entrance of Grand Central, Charles 
darted ahead, with a hasty, “Meet you at the clock. You 
find Mother Spencer and the kids.” 

Catherine drew a long breath and looked up at Bill. 

“South America,” she said. “Mountains. And you 
are really keen about it?” 

“It sounds good, don’t you think?” He pushed open 
the heavy door for her. “Too bad we can’t have dinner 
on some mountain peak.” He smiled down at her. “What 
would they give us ? Hot tamales, or are those Mexican ?” 

“South America—and Buxton,” said Catherine. 

“There is Spencer.” Bill took her arm and swung her 
out of the path of a laden porter. “And the others.” 

“I hope it will be wonderful, Bill. And I’m not done 
for, not yet.” Catherine could see the children, Letty with 
round eyes and her doll hugged under one arm, Marian 
jiggling on her toes with delight. 

“I hope that you-” What he would have said, 

Catherine did not know, for Marian had seen them and 
hurled herself upon her mother with a burst of staccato 
excitement. But Catherine had met, for a clear instant, in 
a lifting of Bill’s somber impersonality, a kind of dogged, 
sympathetic challenge. 

“Oh, Mother!” Spencer had his fingers around her 
arm. “I began to think you weren’t coming!” 



IMPASSE 


343 

“Margaret’s here somewhere.” Mrs. Spencer clung to 
Letty’s hand. “Buying you magazines, I think. Where 
is Charles?” 

“Here’s the King.” Margaret came up with him. 
“Hello, Mr. Bill.” 

“The guard will have to let me through the gate,” an¬ 
nounced Charles severely, “to settle these bags for you.” 

“Oh, Cathy!” Margaret whisked to Catherine’s side. 
“We’re coming up to see you in Maine, Amy and I. In 
our own car! Want us ?” 

“I shall probably stop in Buxton on my way back from 
George’s,” said Mrs. Spencer, as she pushed Letty and 
Marian toward the gate. “I wish you weren’t going so 
far”—she sighed—“but as I’ve said, I think it’s just the 
place for you all.” 

Charles was impressing the guard, successfully, so that 
he did step through, Spencer beside him tugging at a 
handbag. A flurry of good-bys, and Catherine, with Letty 
and Marian clinging to her hands, followed him upon 
the platform. She turned for a last glimpse. Margaret, 
her bright hair flying, was waving at them; Mrs. Spencer 
dabbed softly at her cheeks with her handkerchief; Bill— 
no, Bill had turned away. There, he was waving, too. 
Marian waggled her handkerchief. Charles called be¬ 
hind her, “Come along, Cathy, your coach is halfway 
down the track.” 







jf, 




h 

utL 


















































































































































































































































